


Better than Moonshine

by riyku



Category: CW Network RPF, Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-16
Updated: 2012-12-16
Packaged: 2017-11-21 06:15:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 32,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/594404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riyku/pseuds/riyku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After publishing a few dime store paperbacks and one novel that scored decent critical success, Jensen's in a bit of a rut. He's got an editor breathing down his neck, an overdue novel that needs to be written, and a weeklong workshop to lead on beating writer's block. To top it off, he has a vicarious one-night stand, and now the guy keeps showing up all over the place. It turns out that a little petty larceny, a car crash, and possible blackmail--all in the name of fun--might be exactly what he needs to kick-start his writing again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better than Moonshine

**Author's Note:**

> written for the 2011 spn_j2_bigbang

 

  
  
  
The cursor on the blank screen blinked, in its quiet and insistent way, like it had been for the last hour and a half.  
  
It wasn’t a taunt. Not really. More like an expectation.  
  
Jensen hated that snide little blinking son of a bitch.  
  
He reached out, fingers shaking some over the keyboard and typed ‘The.’ It was a good little word, a nice anonymous article, short and to the point. Multipurpose. Things could go anywhere from here. Jensen just needed to point out a direction. Set his internal compass to true north and get heading that way.  
  
A second later he was hitting the delete button, three small but vehement jabs and away it went.  
  
Easy come. Easy go.  
  
Didn’t Vonnegut write that once? That or something close to it.  
  
His spine popped as he leaned back in his desk chair, stretching his arms above his head, almost toppling backward when the old rotary phone on his desk jumped to life with a shrill ring. He gripped the edge of his desk for balance and stared at it.  
  
He wouldn’t answer it. He was working. That was exactly what he would call this: work.  
  
After the tenth ring, Jensen finally picked it up.  
  
“I’m working,” he snapped into the receiver.  
  
“And how’s that going for you?”  
  
Jensen drew a hand across his mouth, painting a mental picture of his editor cloistered away in his high rise office five hundred miles to the south: Misha, leaning forward in his cushy leather armchair, sporting a hungry, expectant sort of look in his eyes.  
  
“Ask me tomorrow,” Jensen replied.  
  
“Have you tried the Brother?”  
  
Jensen reached out a bare foot and pinched the vinyl covering his electric typewriter between his toes. Everyone had their superstitions, and Jensen wasn’t the type to laugh in the face of tradition. Any decent writing from him came out of that typewriter. Damn the skeptics with their criticism and tales of computer files and easier editing. Jensen liked the clack-clack-clack of words being formed on the old workhorse. It always made him feel like he was getting somewhere.  
  
Somewhere was exactly where he needed to go. Maybe he’d take a walk. Grab his tape recorder and go for a stroll. Something good just might come out of it. Anything had to be better than what he was doing right now. Sitting in this box of a room, suffocating under reference books, deadlines, crumpled take out bags, and blank, frighteningly empty pages.  
  
“Jensen?” Misha prodded.  
  
“Ask me tomorrow,” Jensen repeated.  
  
“I plan on it,” Misha said, and then added, “In person.”  
  
“Sounds like a plan,” Jensen said, the relief he felt dissolving a second later when Misha’s words kicked in all the way. “Wait a minute. What?”  
  
“I sent you at least ten emails, Jensen. At last count about seven messages on your cell phone.”  
  
Jensen started digging through the shuffle of papers in his desk drawer, a sinking sensation putting down roots in his stomach, and shit, he didn’t even know what day it was. For a split second he hated Misha and that little miasmic cloud of reality that the man always shoved into his day-to-day operation.  
  
“Let me guess,” Misha went on. “Your cell phone’s probably dead at the bottom of your laundry basket, and you unhooked the internet sometime last week, and right now you’re wondering how far the cord on your pre-Industrial Era phone will reach. And you’re wondering that, because you’re frantically looking for that manila envelope I sent you a month ago, and probably a calendar, because you have no fucking clue what day it is.” Christ almighty, the man sounded smug.  
  
Jensen rounded the side of his desk, the cord knocking a haphazard pile of heavy books off of the corner. Jensen snarled into the receiver, baring his teeth as if Misha could see it through the phone line. Actually, the transcendental son of a bitch probably could.  
  
“It was a distraction,” Jensen said as his fingers flew through some unopened mail that he discovered on top of a bookshelf. “The internet, that is,” he added for clarification. If he couldn’t manage to think and converse in full sentences, then how the hell was he supposed to write in them?  
  
“So we’ve moved on to _that_ phase, have we?” Jensen could hear the rustle of Misha arranging his clothes over the phone. “Good to know.”  
  
“What does that even mean?” Jensen asked. He found the envelope, shoved between a couple of journals on his book shelf, Misha’s handwriting in bold black marker across the back: _‘Open this now. No, not later. Now.’_ Jensen did a little victory shuffle that resulted in the base of the phone landing with a steely clang on the hardwood floor.  
  
Misha’s chuckle came across the line. “Found it, did you? Good. I’ll save you the effort of, y’know, actually opening it. Are you ready? ‘Cause here we go. It’s the fourth of January, which means two things. First, you’ve had three days to get over the hangover, and second, WriterWorks starts in two days, which means you have be to the airport tomorrow morning to escort yours truly to the horse and pony show. Next, you have to clear a path through your spare bedroom for me. And then, let’s not forget, you have to be ready to lead the students in your workshop to greatness in approximately forty-six hours.”  
  
“That sounded more like five things,” Jensen pointed out. “Plus, I got past that hangover two days ago.”  
  
“Well, you’re already half way there, then. Besides, the last three things are sub-clauses of the second.”  
  
Jensen couldn’t help but laugh. “Am I gonna have to draw a diagram? Some sort of color coded schematic?”  
  
“Leave that up to me. That’s why you pay me an absolutely obscene percentage. Or will pay me, once we get you published again. Which we will.”  
  
Jensen smiled again. That his editor had a sense of humor and any amount of optimism at all after the constant wringer that Jensen put him through was a miracle in and of itself. Trying to wrangle writers had to be harder than herding cats, and Misha was the best, with dedication matched by no one. Either that, or he had a masochistic streak a mile and a half wide. Jensen wasn’t so sure that there was a difference. “Thanks,” Jensen said. For an author, he found himself at a constant loss for words.  
  
Hell, that might have been half his problem.  
  
“Don’t mention it, my boy.” They were both quiet for a couple of seconds. Misha cleared his throat. “Time for a game plan. You’re going to take a shower. I know you need one. Then wash that godforsaken bathrobe I know you have on. When you’re done with that, chain yourself to your desk for the next five hours, and write me something worth reading.”  
  
Jensen frowned at his bathrobe, picked at the threadbare collar. “Easier said than done, Misha.”  
  
“Don’t say that. It’s inside of that head of yours somewhere. You just have to dig it out.”  
  
“Then make sure you pack a shovel.”  
  
Misha ignored him. “Don’t forget to pick me up. I expect a week chock full of absolutely despicable debauchery.”  
  
“On it, captain,” Jensen said, feeling a little better for the pep talk.  
  
Jensen sighed through his smile as he hung up the phone.  
  
The problem with writing something really good one time is that folks pretty much tended to expect it to happen again.  
  
And wasn’t that just the rub.  
  


 

  
  
  
Jensen had a fondness for airports. He liked the bustle of them, could really tap into the charge in the air, that sensation of excitement underlined by the vague smell of jet fuel.  
  
He stood in the luggage claim as he waited for Misha, watching the carousel spin around like a huge metal snake, crawling into its rubber covered cave and emerging with another load of suitcases on its back.  
  
Maybe he’d try sci-fi on for size. He shoved his hands in his coat pockets and frowned as he considered it. Sure, the literati may snub their collective noses at him, and the New Yorker would probably strike his name from their records for the remainder of eternity, but it could be fun. A departure. That’s what he could call it.  
  
“Excuse me?” A voice from behind him piped up. “Mr. Ackles? Are you Jensen Ackles? You wrote _Limited Brea_ k, right?” Texas accent, the vowel sounds stretching out so far they almost needed their own time zone. Jensen missed that sound. It reminded him of home.  
  
Jensen plastered on a smile as he turned. He could never quite get used to this part of the gig.  
  
He had a handful of pulp novels under his belt that to this day continued to make him wince and wish that changing his name was still a viable option. He managed to land a couple of short stories in the ‘New Yorker,’ made the rounds in a few literary magazines and wrote one novel to great critical success, but not so much on the financial side of things. Nowadays, it was all but absent outside of college bookstore shelves. He wasn’t famous, not by any stretch, but he would occasionally trip across someone who recognized him from the photo on the back cover of one of his books.  
  
“Right on both counts,” Jensen said, peering up at the stranger. He looked to be younger than Jensen by a couple of years, wide eyes peeking through unruly bangs that were mashed down by a snug knit hat pulled low on his head. He was bundled neck high in a wool coat and scarf, a dusty colored backpack slouching between his feet.  
  
He was pointing a wide grin in Jensen’s direction. And while Jensen wasn’t too sure what to make of it, he was suddenly slammed full force with the unerring certainty that he could write something about this guy. In truth, Jensen figured that he could write at least a chapter or two about the guy's cheekbones alone, which were high and angular and carried a little bit of a blush, perhaps because of the cold. Yeah, two chapters would just about fit the bill. His fingers started to itch.  
  
In the meantime, the stranger was still staring at him expectantly, the same broad smile on his face, only now it was starting to go a little crooked and unsure.  
  
Jensen blinked, snapped to attention and noticed how the guy had a hand extended toward him, fingers poking through the cut off ends of his gloves. "Jared," the guy was saying. "I'm Jared Padalecki. It's so great to meet you."  
  
There had been enough run-ins like this one over the course of Jensen's career, mainly star struck co-eds who hadn't seen enough of the world to know that what he did really wasn't that big of a deal. All signs pointed to the fact that everything he’d ever written was nine parts luck and one part shoddy judgment. "Always happy to meet a reader," Jensen said, taking Jared's hand. Jared's fingers traced warmly along the inside of his wrist as they shook, Jared’s large hand engulfing his own, and Jensen had to resist the urge to lick his lips. Jesus Christ, he needed to get laid.  
  
“I’m a huge fan,” Jared continued, and nervously shifted his weight. “I must have read your novel at least three times. And then there’s that story you did that showed up in the _Boston Review_ , ‘The Last to Tread Water.’ Speaking of reviews, I read your critique of Pynchon’s latest from a couple of years ago. The one about how there may be a good story buried inside that book somewhere. I couldn’t agree more.”  
  
Jensen crossed his arms, ran a thumb along his lower lip. He was at a bit of a loss under the not-quite nonsensical onslaught pouring from Jared, which continued without a hitch. “Because, well, if there is one in there, I haven’t quite found it yet. Haven’t stopped looking, though. The guy’s a genius, sure, I’m just not so sure exactly how or where that genius is.”  
  
Jensen nodded, feeling awkward and out of his element, and a little grateful that Jared wasn’t letting him sneak a word in edgewise, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth and his mind an echoing blank. Salvation came in the form of Misha, bellowing his name in a booming voice that rattled and bounced off of the bright tiled walls of the airport.  
  
Jared glanced over Jensen’s shoulder, and then surprised him by pulling out a paperback copy of Jensen’s novel from his backpack, dog-eared and missing half the front cover. A dozen placeholders stuck out of it, multi-colored and marking pages all helter skelter. “Sorry, I’m sure you’re busy. And I know I’m coming off like a total creep or something, but could you? Would you mind?” Jared asked, uncapping a ballpoint pen with his teeth and holding the book out to Jensen.  
  
“Happily,” Jensen said, glad to have something to do with his hands as he took the ratty book and scratched an inscription on the title page. He handed it back and Jared shoved it in his coat pocket, thankfully without looking at the writing.  
  
Jared huffed out an embarrassed little laugh. “I’m not supposed to do this, am I? Well…or…ah…” he stuttered. “What I mean is that I really appreciate your work. That’s what I’m supposed to say, right?”  
  
“Sounds about right to me. Good to meet you, Jared,” Jensen said, clapping the guy on the shoulder.  
  
“You too, Jensen. Or, um, Mr. Ackles.” He anxiously adjusted his hat a little further down. “You have no idea,” Jared grinned at him for another second before shouldering his bag and bounding in long strides toward the sliding doors.  
  
Jensen looked after him as Jared crossed the lanes to the taxi station, teeth worrying his bottom lip. Misha came to a stop beside him, silently following Jensen’s line of sight. “Who’s that?” Misha asked after a second.  
  
“I have no clue.” Jensen tilted his head to the side to keep Jared in his view. “I don’t think that I’d mind finding out, though.”  
  
“You know,” Misha began sagely, “they say that there are only two kinds of stories in this world, and one of them starts out ‘a stranger rolls into town’.”  
  
Jensen hummed appreciatively. “How’s the other one go?”  
  
“I don’t think that matters too much right about now.”  
  
“You’re probably right.” Jensen grabbed the suitcase from Misha and started the trek to the parking garage.  
  
Misha whistled low when they approached Jensen’s car, a sleek, cherry red Aston Martin crouching low and beautiful over the two parking spaces. “How’s that advance treating you?” Misha asked, sliding a hand along the rounded curve of the hood.  
  
Jensen shrugged. “It could use a wax. New England winters are a bitch on the paint job.”  
  
The majority of the advance on his next novel had been spent on this car. In retrospect, it was probably not the most logical decision of his life. Especially since summer showed up late and winter hung around much past its welcome in this part of the world. But logic had gotten balled up, chewed up and thrown out the window the very first instant that he’d leaned back in the driver’s seat, put his hands on the wheel and felt the throaty purr of the engine vibrate through his body.  
  
“This thing probably cost more than the entirety of my higher education.” Misha was staring at him pointedly over the cream-colored canvas of the convertible roof.  
  
“Yours and mine combined,” Jensen agreed. “But I seem to remember a certain someone telling me that I needed to treat myself every once in a while.”  
  
“I was thinking something more along the lines of a steak dinner,” Misha said. He opened the door and settled into the passenger seat. He touched the teak dashboard, almost petting it. “But I have to admit that this works. And when did you start taking my advice, anyhow?”  
  
“When it falls in line with what I’m gonna do anyway.”  
  


 

  
  
  
The streets of Jensen’s neighborhood were busier than usual for a small college town in the midst of winter break. Folks were walking around, the folded paper maps handed out by the college orientation staff getting whipped around in their hands by the constant chilly breeze.  
  
Jensen drove past a line of signs hammered into the ground. Black arrows and ‘WriterWorks’ were boldly stamped across their bright, fluorescent pink surfaces.  
  
In Jensen’s estimation, WriterWorks was something akin to a meat market, where young up and comers came to study at the feet of the old and washed up. He wasn’t too sure of his placement in this hierarchy of events, but Jensen still had a soft spot for the whole song and dance. He’d gotten his first story published because of it, ten years ago at the ripe age of twenty.  
  
It was four days worth of workshops and symposiums hosted at the college, capped off with a big old back patting party at the end for the lucky few that managed to score book deals. Unpublished writers came bearing hopeful expressions, resumes, manuscripts, and lofty daydreams about hooking up with an editor or perhaps an agent. Published writers came to share war stories and drink. Usually heavily, in equal parts and all at the same time.  
  
“Have you given any more thought to your workshop?” Misha asked, bumping into Jensen’s shoulder as he reached behind him to grab his briefcase from the back seat.  
  
“Sure,” Jensen said, “I’ve thought about it.”  
  
“Do you care to expand on that statement?”  
  
“I prefer an atmosphere of spontaneity inside the classroom.”  
  
Misha pulled out an envelope. Jensen believed that there had to be no end to Misha’s stock of manila envelopes. He took a stack of papers from it, neatly clipped together. “Just in case your spontaneity runs out, I’ve taken the liberty of gathering together a few talking points for you. A sketchy sort of lesson plan, you could call it.”  
  
Jensen kept one eye on the road and the other on the bundle in Misha’s hands. He read the boldface type across the top. _Breaking Blocks: Practical Techniques for Overcoming Writer’s Block._ Below was a cramped outline, and oh god, bullet points. He saw bullet points.  
  
“Maybe you could also take the liberty of teaching it for me while you’re at it?” Jensen suggested.  
  
“I would if I could. But these guys want to hear it from the genuine article. A real, living, breathing writer.”  
  
“Any ideas where we can find one of those at the last minute?” He was teasing. Or at least he was mostly kidding around.  
  
“I’m willing to bet that I’m sitting next to one.”  
  
“Wouldn’t put too much money on that.”  
  
Jensen turned onto his street and slowed down at the curb. His house was small, built in the cottage style. A porch wrapped around the front, complete with the quintessential creaking wooden swing. He’d converted the garret room into his writing space as soon as he signed the paperwork on the place. It got great light in the morning, and the low, slanted ceilings gave it a cozy, almost burrow-like feeling.  
  
He’d moved into the house about six months back, when he was still clinging to the idea that a change of location would fix whatever was misfiring in the writing part of his brain. The first few months of this northern winter saw him questioning his decision.  
  
Winter brown grass broke free in patches from the thin layer of snow on the ground. The sun was bright, glinting off of the street’s damp pavement, but a bank of dark clouds was blowing in from the southwest, dividing the sky in half. Light and dark. The air smelled like snow and fireplaces.  
  
Jensen apologetically shrugged as he kicked at the newspapers littering the mat at his front door. He unlocked the bolt and turned to his editor. “What do you think about sci-fi?”  
  
Misha frowned, pale blue eyes sharply considering him. He opened his mouth to speak, closed it, and then tried again. “It would be a departure.”  
  
Jensen tossed a grin his way and led them inside. “My thoughts exactly.”  
  


 

  
  
  
“About tonight,” Misha said, startling Jensen from the review he was working on. He crossed from the doorway and leaned over Jensen’s desk, absently straightening a stack of papers. “I was thinking drinks at that watering hole we passed coming in here. Maybe seven o’clock, which really means eight, so we’ll get there by nine, right?”  
  
Jensen leaned back in his chair, shoving a hand through his hair. He should have known that valiantly avoiding Misha for the last two hours in order to claim a lack of short-term memory wouldn’t quite do the trick.  
  
“Yeah, about that…” Jensen began, mentally flitting through excuses.  
  
“No,” Misha said, shaking his head adamantly. “No excuses. Debauchery, Jensen. I’m new in town, and welcoming myself to the neighborhood more than once would be in very bad taste. You’re coming. End of discussion.”  
  
Jensen tried to suss out his reasoning before opening his mouth to speak. Explaining to his editor that his last jaunt into the Grind probably landed him on the nix list for life, and that his bar tab at the joint was approaching something akin to the gross national deficit probably wasn’t the best way to keep the mood light in the house. “I just. I have a thing.”  
  
“I knew it.” Misha snapped his fingers with a wry grin. “Mild mannered writer by day, masked avenger by night, prowler of these mean streets. Well, hero, take a night off.”  
  
Jensen couldn’t help his smile. “You’re right. I’m a superhero. Busted.”  
  
“Your secret’s safe with me, I won’t tell a soul.”  
  
“I guess that makes you my Lois Lane, doesn’t it? Or maybe Mary Jane. I’ve always thought you’d make a hot red head.”  
  
“Enough with the pop culture references.”  
  
“You started it,” Jensen shot back.  
  
“And now I’m finishing it,” Misha said as he strode out of Jensen’s study. “You’re coming.”  
  
“What if I said that I was writing?” Jensen hollered after him.  
  
There was a squeak of rubber-soled shoes stopping on the polished wood floor of the landing, and then Misha stuck his head into the doorway. There it was: that piercing, raptor gaze that unfailingly made Jensen nervous as all hell. “Are you?”  
  
“I don’t know. Maybe. I could be,” Jensen taunted him.  
  
Misha grinned and disappeared from the doorway once more. “That’s the good thing about pens and paper,” he said, his voice growing fainter as he descended the stairs. “They’re eminently portable.”  
  
“Fucker,” Jensen called out, good-naturedly.  
  
“Aw, I love you too, handsome.”  
  


 

  
  
  
The turnout at the bar wasn’t great, even for a Sunday night. The college crowd was still mostly absent, replaced by folks who were in town just for the festivities. A group of people stood bellied up to the bar, all tweed sports jackets with those leather patches at the elbows. There were a few people he knew amongst the ranks, and Jensen recognized a couple more from the back jackets of book covers.  
  
In the interest of self-preservation and the avoidance of a sticky conversation with the owner of the joint, Jensen kept to a dim booth near the back. He had a baseball hat pulled down low over his forehead, sat hunched over the dregs of his third pint, shoving stale pretzels into his mouth and pointedly refusing to make eye contact with anyone.  
  
“Look at what the wind blew in,” Misha announced, back from the bar and juggling another round. Jared loomed tall and grinning over Misha’s shoulder.  
  
He slid in next to Jensen in the rounded booth. “You’ve got to be the most conspicuously inconspicuous person in this place,” Jared said.  
  
“Good to see my plan has come to fruition.” Jensen scooted over a little to make room in the horseshoe-shaped booth when Misha hemmed him in on the other side.  
  
Jared had ditched his hat and his coat from earlier, and had on a sweatshirt with Columbia emblazoned on the front. “You go there?” Jensen asked.  
  
“Used to, yeah. Finished my MA last year.”  
  
“Jared’s a _writer_ ,” Misha cut in, leaning forward, punching a weighty emphasis into the last word.  
  
Now that the cat was out of the bag, Jensen expected a litany of questions, pleas for advice and maybe a manuscript or two to pop out of thin air. He was impressed when Jared kept quiet, only sheepishly smiling while he stirred his cocktail with one long finger. “You any good?” Jensen asked, a healthy dose of professional curiosity winning out. Admittedly, it wasn’t the most tactful question in the world, but the beer was plentiful and his tongue felt a little loose.  
  
He tried not to stare when Jared sucked the tip of his finger into his mouth and shot him a heated, sidelong glance before answering. “I don’t know. I hope so.”  
  
Jared shifted some, his leg brushing against Jensen’s and then moving away. Jensen hid his ridiculous pang of disappointment with another question. “Published?”  
  
“Only in the _Columbia Review_.”  
  
Misha sputtered on a swallow of beer and managed to choke out, “ _Only_?” He wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand.  
  
“The way I see it,” Jared explained, “they’re under a kind of contractual obligation to put to print at least something that I’ve done. With what I paid in tuition, I could have bought a small tropical island somewhere in the Caribbean. Grown sugar cane or something. Export molasses. Spend all my time wearing one of those white suits and a straw hat. Besides, I hear they have excellent rum down there.”  
  
Jensen tipped his beer in a silent salute and drank half of it down, trying to wipe away the mental image of a darkly suntanned Jared, barefooted and bare-chested in some subtropical paradise. It was easier said than done.  
  
“I’ve sent stuff out everywhere,” Jared explained. “No luck, though.”  
  
“And now you’re here.” Jensen waved a hand.  
  
“Yeah. I signed on for a mentorship for this week. Thought I’d hit the jackpot, only…” Jared looked toward the group of people still at the bar, and then leaned forward. The other two crowded in close. “The guy’s kinda a dick,” he quietly finished.  
  
“Spill,” Jensen said, his shoulder bumped up against Jared’s in a way that was really quite distracting.  
  
“I’m staying with Professor Reedy.”  
  
Jensen threw himself against the back of the seat with a groan. Mark Reedy, professor extraordinaire, and the resident superstar of the college’s creative writing department. He published with such regularity that you could set your damn watch to it. One book a year. Usually won half a dozen awards every time he decided to put pen to paper. Reedy was amazingly talented, prolific, and an absolutely insufferable ass.  
  
“You wouldn’t believe it,” Jared went on. “He has a shrine built to his National Book Award in his foyer. Damn thing smacks you flat in the face as soon as you walk through the front door. He keeps the plaque under lock and key in this display cabinet. There’s track lighting, angels singing on high, the whole shebang.”  
  
“Did you take a picture?” Jensen asked. “Tell me you took a picture.”  
  
Jared shook his head. “I’m afraid to get too close. There’s probably some electric force field around it. Or a trap door that leads to an incinerator. Or worse, the dungeon where he keeps all his best and brightest students chained to a bank of word processors, pumping out page after decent page.”  
  
“You’re probably on to something with that,” Jensen said. “It’s the only logical explanation.”  
  
“Exactly.” Jared punctuated the remark with a light touch to Jensen’s knee beneath the table.  One gentle squeeze, and Jensen suffered through a startling second when he was fairly sure he was about to swallow his own tongue.  
  
Misha surreptitiously pointed a thumb toward the bar. “Don’t look now, but it seems like you can add superhuman hearing to the list of the man’s attributes.”  
  
Reedy was heading toward the table, another man in tow. “Time to take one for the team,” Jared said. He downed the rest of his drink in one gulp and shot over to run interception.  
  
Misha hissed across the table once Jared was out of earshot. “Jensen,” he said, his tone serious. “That’s a fun night if ever I saw one. Smart, too, which isn’t particularly necessary, but definitely a bonus.”  
  
“You’re not wrong.”  
  
“Then what’s stopping you?”  
  
“What if he’s not into me?” Jensen yanked the brim of his hat a little further down when Reedy glanced in their direction. Jared smoothly sidestepped to block his view.  
  
“Writers are supposed to chronicle the human condition, or something like that," Misha said.  "You guys are supposed to be observant. Therefore, observe.”  
  
“You don’t even know if he’s gay.”  
  
“It’s pretty obvious that he's into you,” Misha pointed out. “And if he’s not, make him read something you’ve written. Hell, I go a little gay for you every time I read your writing. Can’t be helped.”  
  
Jared shook hands with Reedy and his cohort and joined Jensen and Misha again. He collapsed into the booth with a loud exhale. “His editor,” he explained, “from Putnam.”  
  
“Putnam’s here?” Misha said with a slight jump. “Shit.” Without another word, he shot from the table and dashed over to the crowd of writers across the room.  
  
When Jared gave him a questioning look, Jensen explained, “Acquisitions editor for HarperCollins. Job to do and all that.”  
  
“He’s your editor?” Jared asked.  
  
“He used to be my agent, then he got this cushy job with the publishing house and just kept me on. So yeah, agent, editor, self-appointed life coach. The only guy I really trust in the business.”  
  
With Misha gone, it would have been possible for Jensen to slide further along the bench seat and stretch out. He blamed the sluggish beer buzz for keeping him close to Jared’s side. “So where have you sent your manuscripts?” Jensen said.  
  
“Everywhere,” Jared answered. “Nice little pile of rejections to show for it.”  
  
“I remember my first rejection letter. I had the fucker framed. Still have it somewhere.”  
  
“At least you got a letter.” Jared peeked at him from beneath the fringe of his long bangs. “The first place I tried sent me a rejection post-it note. I thought it was a nice touch.”  
  
“Very personal.”  
  
Another round bit the dust, and Jensen was feeling light-headed with the buzz wearing off, his feet pleasantly numb and his arms feeling weighted down. Jared ditched his sweatshirt at some point, stripped down to a t-shirt that accentuated the shape of his shoulders and the gentle curve of his upper arms. There was a small pool of sweat collecting in the hollow of his throat, and Jared’s speech was getting a little foggy and slurred, the lazy Texas coming out front and center.  
  
“So I kinda geeked out at you at the airport today,” Jared said, a blush of embarrassment or booze blooming red spots on his cheeks. “I’m not always like that.”  
  
“I’m starting to figure as much.” Jensen shrugged it off. “It’s alright, I get that all the time,” he lied.  
  
Jared raised his eyebrows. “Do you?”  
  
“No, not really.”  
  
“Well, you should.”  
  
The bar was emptying out, the crowd dissipating, and Jensen decided to make himself scarce right along with them. “You need a ride?” Jensen asked.   
  
“Wouldn’t mind one.”  
  
Jared pressed a hand into the small of his back as they left the bar. The cold air was a shock after the stuffy warmth inside the place. Jensen shivered against it, and quickened his steps toward his car. “Reedy’s house?” he asked.  
  
“I was thinking,” Jared said with a shy look, “I would love to see your office. The place that you write? If it’s not too late. Or if you don’t mind. Am I being too forward? I’m being too forward, aren’t I?”  
  
“I write at home. Well, I sorta write there. And no, it’s not too forward.” Jensen wanted to do something ridiculous, like bless whatever goddess of fate had smiled down on him this evening.  
  
He was still feeling the afterimage of Jared’s hand on his back. He wondered what Jared would taste like, what it would feel like to plaster his hands on Jared’s back and feel the shift of muscle beneath his skin, how it would feel to have Jared pressing him into his mattress, or the wall, or fuck it, even the kitchen table. He cursed his imagination for its crappy timing and its sudden and distracting kick into overdrive.  
  
“This is your car?” Jared asked, his eyebrows raised.  
  
“Why is everyone always so surprised?” Jensen mused.  
  
“I was thinking you’d drive a pick-up or something. Red, rusty.”  
  
“Like the character of Josie in _Limited Break_? That was my character, Jared. It’s not me. I’m nowhere near that interesting.”  
  
“The character had to come from somewhere, right?”  
  
“Well, it didn’t come from me. Or, I guess in a way it sort of did,” Jensen mused, unlocking Jared’s door and moving around to his own.  
  
Jensen hated this part of the night: the ride back to the house sitting next to someone who you hoped against hope you were going to end up in bed with, but in the meantime you were supposed to kick back and talk about the weather or some other mundane thing. It was one of those social niceties that Jensen had never truly bought into. It was goddamn awkward, there was no better word for it.  
  
He kept one eye on Jared’s profile on the short ride home, let his eyes trace the shape of his smile, only half visible and doused in shadows.  
  
Jensen let them in through the front door, leading them toward the kitchen. Misha’s bags were still piled in the hallway. “Do you live here by yourself?” Jared asked, eyeing the suitcases sitting on the polished floor.  
  
“Misha’s staying with me for the week, but generally, yeah.”  
  
He’d considered a roommate for a brief period of time when he’d first moved in, but figured it would be too much of a distraction from his work. That, and the idea of having another person mucking around gave him a bit of a queasy feeling. Most of the time he was not fit for polite human interaction. He kept odd hours, could easily fall into a nocturnal schedule, had a tendency to play weird music too loudly first thing in the morning, and too often found himself making lasagna at two o’clock at night.  
  
Jensen had long ago come to the conclusion that he was the eternal grad student, behaviorally, at least. He’d made his peace with the fact, but thought it unnecessary to inflict it on anyone else.  
  
He grabbed a pair of beers from the fridge and motioned toward the staircase in the hall. “C’mon, I write up here.”  
  
Having Jared in his study was odd. It made the tiny room feel twice as small. The guy was tall, broad shouldered, just plain big all over, and Jensen was certain that if he rose up to his full height, the top of his head would brush the slanted ceiling in places. With the two of them in there, it felt overcrowded.  
  
His study was a combination of old-fashioned and modern. An antique mahogany desk sat against one wall with a computer atop it that was so new it still smelled like plastic. His old typewriter sat on a brand new stand at a right angle to the desk. His Dutch clock, a dusty family heirloom, ticked quietly away on the wall right beside a vintage Grateful Dead poster from their last run at the Fillmore.  
  
Jensen looked around, a little embarrassed by the clutter and apparent lack of organization. There was mail heaped everywhere, books pulled off of jumbled shelves and left in precarious stacks. A random roll of paper towels occupied one of the two chairs in the room; his bathrobe (freshly washed and dried, thank you very much) was draped over the other. A backlog of unread literary magazines was piled nearly waist high in the corner. Half a ream of paper was stacked on a corner table, covered with cramped single space typing. It was mainly character profiles that Jensen had put there purposefully. A decoy to get Misha off his scent.  
  
The whole room added up to one frighteningly enormous fire hazard. In all fairness, it was probably a pretty accurate physical manifestation of Jensen’s state of mind these past few months, but that didn’t mean that he wanted Jared to know anything about it.  
  
He’d already guessed that Jared learned through touch, judging by the sheer number of small nudges he’d given him at the bar, and by the way he subconsciously leaned in toward Jensen. It turned out that this characteristic extended to Jared’s environment as well. Jared moved around the room, running a hand along the books on his shelf.   His fingertips brushed Jensen’s cluttered desk, pressed into the back of his chair.  
  
Watching Jared move around in his space, Jensen found himself mildly disconcerted and vaguely turned on all at the same time. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of the combination.  
  
“How long have you lived here?” Jared asked, eyeing a stack of cardboard boxes in the corner of the room.  
  
“Six months or so. I’m still not sold on the joint.”  
  
“Seems nice enough,” Jared said, distracted. “I share a walk-in closet with two other guys in Manhattan. Your place is like a palace.” He brushed past Jensen, touching his upper arm for a second. “This thing is a dinosaur.” He fingered the cloth wrapped cord of Jensen’s telephone, and squared it to the corner of his desk. It was an ancient thing, black as ink and heavy enough to be used as a weapon.  
  
“It used to sit on the desk of one Tennessee Williams, at least according to my mother. She gave it to me as a gift after I’d published my first book.”  
  
Jared started, his eyes going wide, and his hand freezing a fraction of an inch above the phone. “Are you serious?” he asked. “And it still works?” He picked up the receiver, held it to his ear and smiled. “I’ll be damned,” he said with wonder.  
  
“Yeah. I’m hoping it still has some sort of mojo to it, like one day I’ll just pick it up and put it to my ear, and a Pulitzer will spring out of my forehead. Fully formed. Really, I think it’s my mother’s not-so-subtle way of reminding me to call her.”  
  
Jared moved on, homing in on Jensen’s typewriter. He touched the faded blue vinyl cover and looked over to Jensen, who gave him permission with a wave of his hand. Jared peeled off the cover and skimmed his fingernail across the keys, much like a person would touch a piano.  
  
“I recognize this,” Jared said. “It’s from the back covers of your books, isn’t it?”  
  
Jensen nodded with a smile. He’d always objected to using a photo of himself on his books, preferring to go the route of a vague non-descriptive half a paragraph about the author on the inside jacket. After a lot of cajoling, he’d relented under the pressure from his publisher. The one he used was from a decade ago. A black and white photo of him sitting on the back porch of the house where he’d rented a room during graduate school, the typewriter set up on a desk made of cinderblocks and two-by-four’s, an extension cord winding its way through an open window behind him.  
  
He’d always liked that house. He’d been able to think there.  
  
“This is the thing you wrote _Limited Break_ on, right?” Jared asked, lining the fingers of his right hand along the worn out home keys of the typewriter.  
  
“The one and only, yeah,” Jensen said, joining Jared in standing in front of the old metal monster. “I’m surprised it actually survived. It took me nine months to write that book. I lugged that thing over a dozen state lines in the process. I swear it has more mileage on it than a twenty year old Honda.”  
  
“Only nine months?”  
  
“It’s a pretty short book, Jared. I was on a roll, besides.”  
  
Jared did a slow spin around the room, taking in all of the details, the junk muddling the shelves, the peculiar slapdash of furniture. He looked like a kid seeing Disney World for the first time.  
  
“I once saw Arthur Miller,” Jared announced out of left field. “Freshman year at NYU. Ages ago. He was sitting on this bench in Central Park. I remember it was an absolutely beautiful day, pigeons all over the goddamn place, but he was all wrapped up in this heavy coat, like it was the middle of winter. People were walking past him, as if he was any other old man sitting on any other park bench. I couldn’t believe it. I wanted to go up to him, say hi, or thanks, or something. But here I was, just some snot-nosed kid barely out of high school. Wet behind the ears. What the hell was I supposed to say to him?”  
  
Jensen wondered where he was going with this, opted to keep quiet and suck down another sip of his beer.  
  
“He was reading a magazine. It was the _Antioch Review_. I hadn’t heard of it before.”  
  
“And you were a creative writing major?” Jensen said incredulously.  
  
“Not at that point. I started out an English major. Which probably is an even worse excuse.” Jared waved it away. “Anyway, I found a copy of it in the library, thinking that if it was good enough for him, then it had to be good enough for me. Your short story was in it. The one about the guy who kept on breaking into other people’s swimming pools.”  
  
A distinct wave of nausea passed through Jensen at the thought that Miller— _Miller_ of all people—might have read something out of his senior portfolio. Jensen closed his eyes, shot up a silent prayer that the man’s copy had been missing a certain four pages somewhere close to the middle.  
  
“I thought that story was amazing,” Jared continued, “it stuck with me for days.”  
  
Jensen groaned a bit. “You were young. Impressionable.”  
  
“Sure I was. We all are at that age, but that’s beside the point. The point I’m trying to make—badly, it would appear—is that it hit me. And you were young when you wrote it, right? Twenty, twenty-one?"  
  
Jensen tried to remember. “Seventeen, I think. I kept it shoved in a drawer for a few years. Yanked it out again when my portfolio came up a little skinny and I needed another short fiction sample.”  
  
“I guess that proves my point. You have a way at looking at the world, a different way of describing it. It sort of terrifies me into thinking I should just give up while I’m ahead, but I like it. In fact, I’m pretty much head over heels with it.”  
  
“Jared,” Jensen began, slowly measuring his words, “that has got to be the longest and most convoluted pick up line I’ve ever heard in my life.”  
  
“You thought that I was just saying that to…” Jared trailed off, uneasily shifting his weight from foot to foot.  
  
Jensen managed to hide his wince, suddenly certain that he’d been reading Jared wrong the whole damn time. “Never mind,” he said quickly.  
  
He started to turn away, his thoughts casting around for a way to salvage whatever was left of the evening when Jared grabbed him, fingers pressing hard into the muscles of his shoulders. All the air left his lungs in a surprised whoosh and then Jared was kissing him. His mouth was hot, and Jensen noticed dimly that he tasted like whiskey sours, a little too sweet, but Jensen wasn’t going to complain. Their collision sent Jensen off balance, tipping backward, the sharp corner of his desk jabbing into his ass. Jensen slammed a hand down to steady himself, the other latching onto the back of Jared’s neck.  
  
The old telephone spoke up, the ringer making a quiet, tinny sound of protest as it started to tip off of the desk, and Jared broke the kiss fast, catching it before it could topple to the floor.  
  
“Close call. It’s irreplaceable,” Jared said, laughter mixing in. Jared dove forward again, his hair ticking Jensen’s jaw when he kissed along the column of Jensen’s throat, moved up to lightly bite on Jensen’s earlobe. Jared’s breath in Jensen’s ear sent a shiver coursing through him. Jared pressed into him, hands on his hips pulling them flush together, so close that they might as well have been standing in the same place.  
  
“So much for foreplay,” Jensen said, panting a little.  
  
Jared backed off for a second, breathing hard through his mouth. A sort of puzzled expression dawned on his face. He buried a hand in Jensen’s hair, his thumb rubbing along his temple. “What do you think I’ve been doing all night?”  
  
“Fair enough,” Jensen laughed, sliding up to sit on his desk and pulling Jared toward him with a fist bunched in his shirt. Jared’s mouth was open when he got there, and Jensen licked in, feeling the smooth, hard surface of Jared’s teeth, the slickness of the roof of his mouth. Jared filled the space between his legs, pressing in closer, and Jensen hooked his ankle around the back of Jared’s leg.  
  
With a groan, Jared rocked into Jensen, sending him in a backward slide on the polished surface of his desk. There was a loud thunk when a solid glass paperweight hit the ground, followed a second later by the whispered shuffle of papers cascading to the floor. The small of Jensen’s back jabbed into his wide computer monitor, and it ricocheted dangerously close to the edge.  
  
Jared made a thin, keening noise of want and broke their kiss. His eyes were dark, pupils blown wide and high spots of blush colored his cheeks. “Maybe we should move this somewhere a little less destructive?”  
  
Jensen kissed him again, fuck, he couldn’t _stop_ kissing him. He gave Jared’s bottom lip a small bite. “Oh god, yes. Please.”  
  
Jensen was a back guy. Some guys were into asses, or chests, or hell, even feet, and whereas Jensen could definitely appreciate a nice ass or a sculpted stomach, he really got off on a gorgeous set of shoulders. As far as fetishes went, it was pretty vanilla. But he couldn’t help himself, didn’t really want to, truth be told.  
  
Jensen followed Jared through his bedroom doorway, kicking the door closed behind him. Jared peeled his shirt up over his head without turning around. The sight made Jensen stop in his tracks, take a staggering step backward to lean against the door. All of the air seemed to have been suddenly vacuumed out of the room, taking Jensen’s lungs right along with it.  
  
Jensen let his fingers curl against the wooden surface of the door, and he bit down on his bottom lip as he watched Jared unhook his belt.  
  
Jared’s back was…remarkable. All graceful lines; from the dip of his spine to the curve of his sides, narrowing down to his hips. His skin was naturally a little dark, despite the winter. His back was dotted with darker spots, little moles that broke up the expanse of perfect, olive-tinted skin. Jensen watched the shift of his muscles as Jared worked at his belt, transfixed by the movement of his shoulder blades. He wanted to run his hands down the center, feel the line of his spine, all the small knobs of bone there. There was a slight gleam of sweat at the base of Jared’s back bone, right above the waist of his pants, and Jensen needed to press his tongue to it, wanted to taste him.  
  
Jensen pressed the heel of his hand against his dick, hard as hell. All of his nerve endings lighting up like fireworks. Jared was turning him inside out and wasn’t even aware that he was doing it.  
  
Jared partially turned toward him, half of a smile visible in his profile. Jensen’s eyes followed the elegant curve of his neck, and he gritted his teeth against a stab of heat that shot through him. “Everything alright?” Jared asked, his voice low and thick.  
  
“I’d say so, yeah,” Jensen stammered, and crossed the room to come up behind Jared. He spread his hands across Jared’s shoulders, buried his nose in Jared’s hair and breathed in deep. He smelled musky, maybe a little like sandalwood. It made his hips jump forward, rubbing into Jared’s ass in an instinctive hunt for friction. He bit the spot where Jared’s neck met his shoulder and Jared arched back, hissing through his teeth. Jensen let his fingers follow down along Jared’s spine, let them eat up the curve at the small of his back. “Fuck, I want,” Jensen said, his mouth moving along the back of Jared’s neck. “I want,” he tried again, but the part of his mind responsible for higher function was short-circuiting.  
  
“Me too,” Jared said, turning around and yanking on Jensen’s belt. The front of Jared’s pants was open, his jeans slipping half way down his hips. The line of his cock was straining against his boxers, a darker spot staining the front of them. It made Jensen’s mouth water, and Jensen planted his forehead on the center of Jared’s chest, his blood pushing through his body in a heady rush. Jensen skated his palm down Jared’s stomach, felt the tremor of his stomach muscles and went even lower, hooking a thumb around Jared’s dick. He jacked him slowly, his grip stuttering dry along the length of him.  
  
Jared choked out a deep, sensual laugh as he threw his head back with the feeling. “I’m trying to get you naked here. You’re not making it easy.”  
  
Jensen took a step back, held his arms up in surrender. “Have at it.”  
  
Jared made quick business of his shirt, kissed a trail along Jensen’s chest, his teeth teasing at Jensen’s nipple and working his way lower, all small bites along his stomach. He shoved Jensen’s jeans to the floor, and set to sucking a bruise on the bare skin of Jensen’s hip.  
  
The cool air hit Jensen’s dick like a shock, and he wrapped a fist around himself, squeezing.  
  
Jared bit down hard on his hip, the snare of pain making Jensen lightheaded. “Hey,” Jared purred, “no hands.” He spit into his palm and took over where Jensen had left off, thumb and fingers wrapped just right around Jensen’s cock. He kissed the head, rubbed it against his bottom lip with taunting little licks, pressed his tongue to the spot right beneath the crown. He slid down the length, his tongue a perfect pressure on the underside, and sucked.  
  
Jensen staggered, bucked his hips forward and had to lock his knees in place when he slammed against the back of Jared’s throat. Jared took him in, mouth sloppy wet and spit slicking his lips and chin. He pulled off with a gasp, dragged his mouth down to the root, catching his breath, and then took him right back in again with a swirl of his tongue.  
  
The ground was shifting sideways beneath his feet, standing in the middle of the room with nothing to lean against, and Jensen dropped a hand to Jared’s head, feeling the soft slip of his hair between his fingers. Jared looked up at him, eyes dark and his lips stretched obscenely around Jensen’s dick. He took him all the way down, opening up his throat, and it was right then that Jensen lost it. With no warning, he snapped his hips forward and came, sliding through the mixture of come and spit in Jared’s mouth. Jared let him, just grabbed onto Jensen’s hips for balance, his fingernails biting into Jensen’s flesh.  
  
Jared pulled off, rocked backward on his haunches, and ran his tongue along the mess of his bottom lip. His pants were most of the way down his thighs, his cock a hard arc against his stomach.  
  
Jensen blinked, tried to clear his vision through his fucked out daze and staggered the few steps to his bed on legs that threatened to collapse on him. He fell face down, and Jared followed him in, kicking off his jeans and sliding up his body to slot between Jensen’s legs. His dick was trapped between them, a hot weight that nudged between Jensen’s thighs, pressing against his balls. Jared’s chest was a solid heaviness on his back, Jared’s hands running up along his ribs and kneading his shoulders, his mouth hot, sucking at a spot behind his ear. Jensen turned his head, and Jared’s lips found his in a sloppy, awkward kiss, bitter with the taste of his own come.  
  
He was pinned there, a slight attempt at flipping around was thwarted easily by Jared, and for some reason that turned Jensen on like mad. Sure, Jensen was big, but Jared was huge, could overpower him and hardly break a sweat doing it. The idea made Jensen buck up, shifting his hips, his ass rubbing against Jared’s cock.  
  
Jared growled, rutted forward, slipping his cock between the cheeks of Jensen’s ass, the head of it catching on Jensen’s rim with every thrust. Jared kept on moving, sweat and precome slicking the way. Jared rocked into him, breath hot on the back of Jensen’s neck, the sound of it whistling between Jared’s teeth. The teasing swipes of Jared’s dick against his rim made Jensen half hard again. Jared slammed forward once, twice, latched onto Jensen’s shoulder with his teeth and came, spitting out a muffled groan against Jensen’s skin. His spunk splashed hot on the small of Jensen’s back, he could feel it trickle down to pool along his spine.  
  
Jared rolled off and landed beside Jensen, his chest still heaving. “Fuck.”  
  
Jensen propped himself up on an elbow, shoved a hand through Jared’s sweat damp hair, pushing it away from his face. He leaned over and kissed the corner of his mouth.  
  
“I didn’t mean for that to happen,” Jared said, giving Jensen a sheepish look.  
  
“It’s okay. Actually more than okay from where I’m standing.” Jensen smiled down at him.  
  
Jared snorted a laugh. “No. Not that. Well, that, sure. But I really mean this.” He made an all encompassing gesture with his hand.  
  
“It’s still okay,” Jensen shrugged.  
  
“So what do we…ah. Do you want me to go?”  
  
Jensen fell onto his back, arranged the pillows beneath his head. “You just gave me one hell of a blowjob, Jared. I think that I can spare the left side of my bed for a few hours in return.”  
  
His arms and legs felt heavy, his eyelids like they were made of lead. Between the two of them, they shimmied beneath the covers. Sleep was coming on hard and fast, Jensen was almost there when he felt Jared shift closer to him, lay an arm across his waist, and hook their ankles together.  
  
It was dark, thankfully, so no one could see the small smile on Jensen’s lips.  
  
  
[  
](http://riyku.livejournal.com/13189.html)

 

  
 

 

 

  
 

Jensen squinted against the bright morning sunlight streaming through the curtains of his bedroom. The first thing he realized was that he’d lost a sock somewhere in the sheets during the night. The second thing he noticed was that the other side of the bed was empty.

It wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. It probably wouldn’t be the last. Jensen laid there, valiantly ignoring the quick and puzzling stab of disappointment, trying to convince himself it was for the best. Few things in life were more socially awkward than sitting across the breakfast table from a guy who had screwed your brains out the night before, shoveling cereal into your mouth and trying to strike up a conversation, only to find out that the two of you didn’t really have a whole hell of a lot to talk about in the harsh light of day.

He rolled onto his stomach, burying his face in the pillow. The pillowcase still held Jared's smell. There was a long strand of brown hair stuck into the white pillowcase, and Jensen picked it up, twirled it between his fingers for a second.

Jensen yawned and stretched expansively. Water was running in the bathroom. It sounded like the shower, and damn it, he had to piss.

The floor was cold against the sole of his foot, and he dug around for his lost sock in the sheets. A few staggering steps brought him to his pile of clothes, and he fished out his boxers, just another reminder of why he enjoyed living alone.

Still groggy and mostly asleep, he knocked on the bathroom door. When there was no answer, he opened it, releasing a fog of steam into the hallway. “Marco!” he shouted when he entered.

“Polo!” the shout came back. It wasn’t Misha. Huh.

“Jared?” he asked, a mixture of surprise and dread making his heart rattle around in his chest.

Jared peeked around the shower curtain. His hair was slicked back and wet, and one eye bloodshot from soap. “I hope you don’t mind,” he said. “I still had airplane gunk on me. And you,” Jared added, raking his eyes up and down Jensen’s body in a way that made Jensen want to squirm.

“’s fine,” Jensen mumbled. “I gotta piss.”

“So you’re one of those people.” Jared ducked back behind the curtain. “I take it you’re not an early riser?”

Jensen grunted in response. “I’m going back to bed,” he said. “Feel free to join me.”

It felt like Jensen had just closed his eyes for a moment when a swift kick to his door startled him awake.

“Fuck,” Jensen muttered. There was another clamor against his door, like the godforsaken Gestapo was on the other side.

“Mornin,’ sunshine,” Misha shouted through the door.

“I’m up! Fuck,” Jensen hollered back at him, and listened to Misha’s footsteps retreating down the hall.

Jensen shuffled into the kitchen and started slamming around in the cupboard in his search for a clean coffee cup.

Misha sat at the kitchen table, steam rising up from the mug of coffee at his elbow. He was wearing the same suit he had on the night before, his hair a little rumpled and his eyes bloodshot, but not looking too much worse for wear. Without looking up from his newspaper he said, “You were right about that car, by the way. The thing drives like a dream. A wet dream.”

Jensen grunted, scraping his spoon along the bottom of his mug. He leaned against the counter and scratched absently at his chest. He hissed at the scalding temperature of his first sip, stared blankly into the middle distance until his thought processes kicked in a full minute later.

“My car?” he nearly squawked, sloshing hot coffee over his hand in his rush toward the front door.

“Relax,” Misha urged. “You were asleep. Jared needed a ride to his benefactor’s, and then to the college. Said he had to get something squared away before the workshops started.”

“Jared?” Jensen said, still unable to form a complete thought, much less engage in multisyllabic communication. He felt a little tingle on the back of his neck, and thought about the feeling of Jared’s mouth there the night before.

“Looks like you two had a fun time last night,” Misha observed.

Jensen hiked at his shorts in an attempt to cover a very obvious bite mark on his hip. He smiled, in a crooked, dazed sort of way. “Yeah.” He drank down more of his coffee, still peering at his car. “Any luck?”

“Funny you should ask. I did happen to meet up with this second year Master’s student—“

“Not that,” Jensen interrupted. “Did you have any luck cock-blocking the guy from Putnam?”

“These things take time,” Misha explained.

“Bullshit,” Jensen countered. “If people knew you were in town for the express purpose of signing half a dozen new authors, I’d have to build a moat around this place to keep them out.”

“How would you know? If memory serves, you signed our agreement before I was even finished writing the damn thing. Trust me, it takes a certain amount of finesse to lure in the right kind of young writers.”

“In other words, Putman is still breathing down your neck.”

“In other words, I’m getting there.”

 

Jensen strode down the hall, the rubber soles of his sneakers squeaking on the linoleum, the sound echoing off of the painted cinderblock walls. He was mildly irritated after an uneasy run in with none other than the honorable Professor Reedy himself, and then had to spend a full fifteen minutes zigzagging back and forth across campus in search of the right building.

He was pleasantly surprised when he entered the classroom, having expected to be faced with rows of uncomfortable desks that a person of any height had to shoehorn themselves into, maybe a lectern at the front and a milky old chalkboard. Instead there was a long conference table with comfortable, fake leather chairs, a whiteboard along one wall, and all of this hi-tech audiovisual equipment shoved into the corner. Jensen spotted a DVD player, and thought that if all else failed, he could always play a movie to help the time pass.

About a dozen people of various ages sat around the table, papers and pens spread out in front of them. A few of them were chatting quietly to each other, but mostly they were looking through pamphlets and papers, scribbling on their notepads or leafing through manuscripts.

“Nice digs,” Jensen said, looking around the room. It earned him a few seconds of polite laughter.

This wasn’t going to go well.

It had taken him exactly one public book reading to fully grasp the fact that he wasn’t too hot on speaking in front of a crowd. Hell, in retrospect, even that had been easy. All he’d had to do was stand behind a podium and read a passage from his book. No one had expected eye contact or witty anecdotes. Nonetheless, the first time he’d gotten in front of a college auditorium full of people, he’d tripped over his words, lost his place a handful of times and had read so fast that both he and his audience were utterly lost by the end.

This was a thousand times worse. Sure, the audience was smaller, but he was completely off script. In fact, he didn’t actually have a script in the first place.

Jensen unloaded his arms onto the table, and shot up a silent thank you to Misha when he opened the outline his editor had provided. He begrudgingly admitted it was a good place to start. The sensation of eyes boring into his back made him quicken his step as he went back out into the hallway to fill up a bottle from the water fountain.

Jensen looked down the hall when he heard the echo of a slamming door and the pound of heavy footsteps..

Jared bounded down the hallway, again bundled up tight against the cold. He had his backpack over his shoulder and a slip of paper that looked like a receipt in his hand. “Howdy, teach. Sorry I’m late,” he said, handing over the slip of paper with a toothy smile.

Jensen peered down at it. It was a registration form, a carbon copy showing that Jared had dropped one workshop and picked up different one. Jensen’s workshop, in fact.

“Really, Jared? Really.” The fact that Jared had just signed on to become Jensen’s student, however temporary and informal the whole deal was, just made Jensen feel downright skeevy. He glanced over his shoulder into the classroom, and was relieved when no one appeared to be listening in.

“Misha told me you were teaching one this week. I had no idea. I’d skipped past it on the list, well, because I’ve never been blocked before. But when I found out it was you…” Jared gazed down at him with a heated expression, letting his eyes linger overlong on Jensen’s mouth.

Jensen nervously looked up and down the hall. Jared was looking at him in a way that screamed that they’d definitely seen each other naked in the very recent past. If anyone saw them, it would certainly take a huge chunk out of Jensen’s respectability level. Slim odds that it perhaps may add to it, but he wasn’t willing to take that bet.

Jensen took a deep breath. “Well, come on, then. You don’t want to be late for your first day, kiddo.” He turned toward the door, but Jared grabbed him by the elbow.

“What are you doing after class?” Jared’s voice dripped with innuendo.

Jensen paused for a second in consideration, fighting a small internal war between his conscience and his sex drive. Jared was a six and a half foot tall pillar of temptation, but he really needed to get his act together if he held out any hope of churning out something decent to hand over to Misha before the week was through.

“I’m writing,” he said. It wasn’t necessarily a lie. It was always a possibility.

“How about after that?” Jared said, hopeful.

“Probably writing some more.”

Jared followed him into the classroom and took a seat. Jensen couldn’t help but notice the way two of the women—one of them old enough to be his mother—stared openly at him as he produced a legal pad and a pen from his backpack. Nor could Jensen help his feeling of smug satisfaction. Jared gave the people at the table a dimpled grin, and turned his attention to the front.

After comparing a head count to his roster, Jensen cleared his throat. “I need to tell you guys something before we begin.” He looked around the room, his glance snagging on Jared for a second before moving on. “I don’t believe in writer’s block.”

Jensen was only too aware of the irony inherent in that statement. It had been almost a full year since he’d written anything other than a review or an editorial, longer than that since he’d published any fiction. There had been a few sputtering starts that had stalled out before he could even complete an outline, but those were hardly worth thinking about.

A few surprised expressions resulted from his statement, so he continued. “Either you have something to say or you don’t. And there’s no use spouting off crap if you don’t. That being said, I think it’s high time we get going on this.” He turned to the white board that took up the majority of one wall. “Whatever the fuck _this_ is,” he muttered under his breath and began write up an outline.

 

“How did it go?” Misha was sitting on the steps leading up to the student union, sunshine glinting off of his polished shoes and his briefcase balanced between his feet.

“Smashingly,” Jensen said, the word smothered in sarcasm.

“That good.”

“I don’t think they like me very much.” Jensen joined Misha on the stairs, the cold from the marble seeping into his skin.

“Just give them a couple of days. They’re bound to get used to you.”

“Jared showed up,” Jensen said, ignoring the quip and leading the conversation into a hairpin turn.

“I kinda thought he might.”

“It’s your fault,” Jensen pointed out.

Misha frowned. “I’ve been accused of worse things.”

“He wants to see me again. It’s not very conducive to that whole one night stand thing I had going for me.”

“Maybe he likes you,” Misha shrugged. “Contrary to popular opinion, you can be a lot of fun, despite a certain lack of social etiquette and your tendency toward self imposed solitary confinement.”

“Fuck off,” Jensen grumbled.

“Like I said, a likeable lack of etiquette.” Misha knocked his knee against Jensen’s. “Where is he, anyhow?”

“I brushed him off. Work to do.”

“Work? Like putting fiction down on paper? That kind of work?” The note of hope in Misha’s voice sent Jensen’s stomach plummeting in the direction of his shoes.

“Yeah. That kind of work.” Maybe if he told enough people that he was writing, it would turn into some kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. “Do you need a ride home?”

“Not right now. I could use the walk. Besides, I’ve got to go see a guy about a thing.” Misha pushed himself off of the stairs and straightened his tie.

“That’s specific.”

“I don’t want to jinx it. Now get to work. I’m banking on you, my boy. Pretty literally at this point.”

 

 

  


 

  
Jensen trudged up the stairs to his office like he was on his way to the gallows. He’d packed provisions, had two bottles of water and one bottle of scotch tucked into the crook of his arm, a sandwich, and a packet of those three hour energy tabs you could get at the convenience store around the corner. He was ready for anything.

His office had remained untouched since the night before. Jensen circled his desk, spotting the paperweight that had been knocked off last night, and rolled it around with his foot before picking it up. The thing was a rounded, comfortable weight in his hand. He shuffled the papers that littered the ground into a stack and shoved them onto a shelf.

He put on his bathrobe, kicked his shoes off, and resolutely shut the blinds at the windows. Opening his desk drawer, he took out a document folder, one of those accordion jobs that were divided into sections. He had tons of junk in there. Character profiles with no plot to stick them in. Protagonists and antagonists by the score, everybody with nowhere to go. Lists of potential names for characters that were long enough to drive a person to distraction. He leafed through the papers, skimming the type, hoping that something would stick.

But looking at all this old stuff had never gotten him anywhere before, and it probably wasn’t going to work now.

Turning on his computer, Jensen watched as the screen came to life, listened to the whir of the thing starting up. He fooled around with his word processing program, trying to figure out a way to hide the word count that was a constant, nagging sort of pressure at the bottom of the screen. He couldn’t make it go away, and didn’t want to plug his internet back in to ask it. That would have gotten him nowhere fast. Wrapping his bathrobe more snugly around his chest, Jensen sat back and stared at the blank screen, allowed himself a slug of scotch and pulled his lips back at the burn it left in his throat.

He didn’t get it. There had been a time, not long ago, when he couldn’t stop writing. Staying up for days, fueled by coffee and sucking on those little butterscotch candies he used to eat by the handful. Hours spent, mindless of the ache in his back from hunching over the keyboard, his typewriter sitting on one of those little TV tables, like the one his grandmother used to eat supper on. The slats of his secondhand dining room chair would leave a brand on his ass, and the downstairs neighbors would wack at their ceiling at three in the morning with broom handles as the noise of the electric typewriter clanked off of his blank walls.

Sure, back then people had thought of him as a sort of boy wonder, publishing a handful of books, working his way up to the one good novel he was actually somewhat proud of, all before the age of twenty-five. He’d enjoyed a kind of mediocre notoriety at a fairly young age. But Jensen knew the truth: it was less a matter of being some sort of child prodigy, and more a result of a complete lack of social life during his formative years.

Everything had been secondary to the push. He’d had it then.

But now nothing. Nothing but this hollow sort of ache whenever he thought about how things used to be. It was like an old friend he knew he’d never see again but thought about a thousand times a day.

He’d been doing anything not to write. Filling up the time with excuses. Scrubbing out the refrigerator, rearranging furniture, replacing every set of mini-blinds in the house. Writing review after review, because it at least kept him thinking and it stopped the electricity from getting shut off. Then there was that week where he flossed his teeth about seven times a day, convincing himself that putting out a book shadowed in comparison to the importance of clean and healthy gums. He was afraid he was on the brink of turning into a washed up hack who could only write about the stuff other people were writing about.

Publish or die was the motto in Jensen’s line of business, and he was all too aware of the number of nails in his coffin.

Jensen looked at his typewriter, his good old Brother. The cover was shoved between its scarred metal case and the wall, exactly where Jared had left it last night. The damn thing looked depressed, dejected and ignored, slumping unplugged on the table. “I know, sweetheart,” Jensen said to it, “we’ll get going one of these days.” He covered it up again.

All this introspective navel gazing wasn’t going to get him anywhere. He’d promised himself three pages. It was best to ease into these sorts of things, after all. Three pages should be a cinch, probably only about two thousand words, and that was if it was heavy on the exposition and light on the dialogue. He could do this. He pretty much didn’t have a choice.

But first, some music. Jensen crossed the room, opening his record cabinet, a Dutch style thing that looked like it belonged in an episode of the Jetson’s. He pinched some dust off of the needle, and skimmed his finger along his collection of records in his search for Ella Fitzgerald live from Berlin. He was thinking about setting a story in the Deep South and wanted to hear her sing about the summer.

The record wasn’t in the right place, and neither were a dozen more besides. Jensen dropped to the ground, crossed his legs in front of him and set to organizing. He couldn’t be expected to write knowing that his records were out of order. Nobody could expect that out of him.

It was funny, how time seemed to jump forward as Jensen organized his records, stared at his blank computer screen until his vision doubled, and opened a backlog of mail. He found a royalty check among all the junk mail, a pleasant surprise. Ten years ago, almost to the day, Jensen had gotten his first check as a published author. Two hundred bucks and at the time it had felt like a million.

He heard the kitchen door open, and was startled to find himself three hours poorer with nothing but another character profile written up.

He had a name: Frannie Windwhistler. She had long grey hair and had worked at the same factory for thirty some odd years. Didn’t love her husband but still liked him just fine, and collected those little Hummel figurines by the score. Jensen knew where she shopped, what kind of things were in her pantry and where she’d gone to high school. He knew that she did her wash on Wednesdays and that she was allergic to shellfish. He just didn’t have any idea what she did, and why it was worth a person’s time to actually read about her.

Jensen printed out the pages, stuffed them back into the folder and opened his desk drawer. Spotting the corner of a wooden frame, he shimmied it out from beneath some paperwork. It was his first rejection letter, framed archivally for posterity. Jensen wiped some dust off of the glass and set it on his desk. Maybe he’d give it to Jared. The guy might like to have it, and that would be one less thing to pack when it was time to move again.

He was feeling a move coming on. A change in location might be just the thing to knock him out of this rut. Never mind that it didn’t work the last time he’d tried it.

Misha was digging around a kitchen drawer when Jensen joined him, a bottle of wine in one hand. Jensen opened the one at his hip and tossed the corkscrew in Misha’s direction. Misha gave him a long look, pointedly taking in Jensen’s bathrobe and rumpled hair. “How’s it looking up there?”

“I’d say so-so,” Jensen lied, joining him at the kitchen table.

“You want to talk about it?”

“Not yet, maybe later.”

“You’ll get there. Talent like yours doesn’t just go away over night.”

“You’re right,” Jensen said. “In my case it’s more like a slow, steady leak.”

Misha made a show of rolling his eyes. He reached across the table and tapped a finger on Jensen’s temple. “No, it’s still all in there. I can smell a good book from a mile away. You stink like one right now.”

Intellectually, Jensen knew he had at least one more story inside of him that he was meant to tell. He just had no idea what it was about.

“There’s a reading at the college tonight,” Misha told him. “Sort of an open mic night. Bunch of new writers are going to be there. Reedy’s headlining the thing, of course. You in?”

“Not if Reedy’s gonna be there,” Jensen said. He knew he sounded petulant, and couldn’t help himself. His wasted afternoon had put him in a mood.

“You should go. Keep an eye on the competition. You know the whole ‘keep your enemies closer’ thing? Besides, we can make fun of the inevitably purple prose that all those newbies are pumping out. You love that kind of thing.”

“Alright, I’ll go. But only if I don’t have to wear dress shoes.”

“Hell, you can wear your goddamn bathrobe for all I care.”

 

  
 

  
There was a decent turnout in the college auditorium for the book reading. The entire front row was occupied by the victims for this evening, every single one of them flipping through manuscripts and full of nervous tics. Jensen could relate.

A podium stood in the center of the stage with a single spotlight trained on it. The very sight of the set-up made Jensen’s skin crawl. Jensen spotted one of his students from the workshop in the front row of seats. He couldn’t remember her name, but she was young, very early twenties. Sort of an emo-looking kid, the type you would expect to see sitting at Jack Kerouac’s grave in the gloom and fog, writing bad poetry at midnight.

He told Misha to save him a spot and went over to her, squatting down in front of her seat. She was trying to pick apart the hem of her skirt with anxious fingers, and Jensen took her hand for a second to stop her fidgeting. Her palm felt damp, clammy, a slight tremor in her fingers.

“Mr. Ackles?” she said, confused.

“Jensen,” he corrected her with an easy smile. He tried to speak in a calm, soothing tone. “Everything’s gonna be fine, okay? You’ll do well. Just talk slowly, keep your finger on the line that you’re reading and remember to breathe. It’ll all be over before you know it.”

“I’ve never done this before.” Her voice shook with nerves. She looked around at the people gathered in the room, then at the folks who were still streaming through the doors. “There are a lot of people here.”

Jensen scanned the room, picking Misha out of the crowd. His stomach dropped a little when he saw Jared standing next to him. He pointed in their direction. “You see that guy? With the dark hair, and that god-awful trench coat? Standing next to Jared from our workshop?”

She followed his line of sight and nodded, her hand finding the hem of her skirt again.

“I’ll be sitting right there, so if you have to look up when you read, look at us. And remember that there are three of us on your side here tonight. It’s a lot more than most of these people have. Sound good?”

She gave him a relieved smile. “Thanks.”

Jensen stood up, briefly squeezing her shoulder. “And for fuck’s sake, stop twisting at your skirt. If you tear it up, it’ll only make a bad situation even worse.”

The girl laughed, an unexpectedly bright sound. She flattened her hand on top of her manuscript. “Got it.”

Jared hugged him when Jensen joined the two of them. Hugged him like it was the most natural thing in the world, his arms wound tight around Jensen’s shoulders, burrowing his cold nose into his neck. Jensen wasn’t too sure what to think about that.

They settled into their seats, Jensen sandwiched between Misha and Jared. “How’s Annie doing?” Jared asked, leaning in close.

Of course Jared would have taken the time to learn her name. He’d probably taken the time to memorize the name, rank, and serial number of everyone in his class once Jensen had hastily ducked out of the room.

“If she looks over here, just give her a smile and a thumbs up or something,” Jensen replied.

Jared leaned across Jensen’s lap and tapped Misha’s shoulder. “See? I told you he was a good guy.”

“You just haven’t known him long enough,” Misha shot back.

Jared continued, “I don’t know, he made a pretty good first impression.”

“Are we talking about the same person?” Misha asked.

“Guys, I’m right here,” Jensen piped up, earning grins from either side of him.

The lights dimmed, and Professor Reedy strode on stage, the spotlight gleaming on his thinning hair. He was the very picture of a purposefully hip college professor. His hair intentionally bird nested, a sports coat worn over top of an old concert t-shirt, Chuck Taylor tennis shoes, the whole nine. After a dramatic pause, he gripped the sides of the podium and intoned, “I am Mark Reedy, and I am an author.”

Jensen hunched down in his chair, propped his knees up on the back of the seat in front of him and muttered, “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”

Reedy launched into a diatribe about the voices of the new generation, and Jensen did his best to ignore him. Luckily, Jared was there to help him along.

He kept running his knuckles against Jensen’s thigh, a slow, seemingly subconscious need for contact. He would reach out and squeeze Jensen’s hand if he liked a line or a particular turn of phrase, make the occasional low comment, leaning in close, his breath tickling Jensen’s ear. Jensen felt like his skin was too tight, kept fighting the ridiculous urge to touch Jared right back, maybe start making out with him like two hormone soaked teenagers in the back of a movie theater.

Misha kept himself occupied on Jensen’s other side, a writing pad propped on his thigh and a pen in his hand, scribbling down names and notes. He reminded Jensen of a talent scout at a high school football game. In a way, he was probably exactly that.

Annie finally took the stage, looking like she was about to cry, or pass out, or perhaps both at the same time. Jensen sat up to his full height, an encouraging smile frozen on his face on the off chance that she could see past the spotlight and into the audience. Jensen was glad to see that all of her clothes were still in one piece.

She read a bit too fast, but didn’t lose her place once. When she was done, Jared let out an inappropriate whoop, and the girl grinned in their direction, relief flooding off of her in a wave so big Jensen could feel it from his seat in the middle of the room.

As Reedy was announcing the next writer, Jensen whispered to Jared. “Why aren’t you doing this?”

Jared averted his eyes, started picking at his thumbnail. “Stage fright,” he said.

“I don’t believe that,” Jensen chided.

“I had been signed on, actually. But then I found out that you might be here, and…I don’t know. Nothing I have is good enough for you to hear.”

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard all day,” Jensen said dismissively.

“Then you need to get out more,” Jared replied.

Reedy finally took the stage to close out the night, and Misha reached across Jensen, plucking at Jared’s shirt to get his attention. “Prepare to Mystery Science Theater this bitch.”

Jared chewed on his lip to stop from laughing. “This is gonna be good.”

 

  
 

Jensen was surprised to find that he still had a full house for the second day of his workshop. Annie was waiting for him outside of the classroom. “Shoot straight with me,” she said to him. “How awful was it?”

“Actually, you did surprisingly well. My agent said you had potential, and he rarely has anything good to say about anybody.”

“Potential?” she said, looking like she’d just seen the Holy Grail. With a wide smile, she headed into the classroom.

Jared was already seated at the table, a hangdog expression on his face and every acre of his back in an uncharacteristic slouch. He was hunched over a manuscript that was held together by three small brass brads, flipping through it, his lips moving silently. The pages were riddled with red, like they’d come out of the wrong end of a slasher movie, nasty stripes of color crossing out whole paragraphs and crowded notes in the margins.

Ouch.

Jensen cleared his throat to get everyone’s attention. “I think I might have skipped ahead a little in yesterday’s discussion,” he began. “Bear with me while we work backward for a second. I’d like you guys to tell me the first thing you learned in your intro to writing classes.”

“Write what you know,” a man sitting near Jensen said.

“Always a good idea,” Jensen replied. “Besides, it’s not always possible to fake it ‘til you make it. People are too smart nowadays.”

A woman on the other side of the table raised her hand, “Show, don’t tell.”

“Crucial,” Jensen nodded, “and sometimes not as easy as it sounds.”

Jared tore himself away from his manuscript and squinted toward Jensen. “Begin as close to the ending as possible.”

“From the Vonnegut school of how to respect your reader,” Jensen said. “Now if he’d been around in Tolstoy’s day, we would all have a lot more time on our hands at this point.”

That earned him a few chuckles, to Jensen’s great relief.

“I suppose there’s just one thing I’d like you guys to walk away with after our time together.” Jensen leveled a direct look at Jared when he spoke. “No one can actually teach a writer how to write. Anyone who says he has the key to good writing is full of crap. He needs to check his ego and his bullshit at the door. I can only tell you what I know, and how I do it. What works for me. What you take from it is up to you.”

Jared smiled at that, closed his manuscript and pushed it away from himself. Jensen suddenly felt like the room had gotten a few watts brighter.

 

  


 

 

Jared joined him as soon as they were done for the day. “Thanks for that,” he said.

Jensen shrugged it off. “You weren’t looking that good there.” The way that Jared set his teeth into his bottom lip made Jensen want to kiss him. If he was honest, every time Jared did anything, anything at all, Jensen wanted to kiss him.

“Fun morning,” Jared’s chest expanded with a long sigh. “I had Reedy look over a couple of short stories. He basically handed my ass back to me in ribbons. Couldn’t even be bothered with a silver platter.”

“You want a second opinion?” Jensen offered.

“Hell no. The first time around was bad enough.”

Jensen waved to the last person leaving the room. He took a step closer to Jared, “I’ll be gentle, I promise.” He felt like he was not in control of his hand when it somehow wrapped around Jared’s hip. Damnit, he was flirting with him. Pretty heavy too.

“You don’t need to go gentle on me, Jensen,” Jared said with a throaty laugh. “Maybe later? Even though the idea of you, of all people, reading anything I’ve written scares the hell out of me.” Jared seemed to shake himself out of it. “I should go. I’ve got a meeting with a possible agent across campus. You don’t happen to have something genius in your bag of tricks that you would want to let me plagiarize real quick? Just to get my foot in the door?”

“I would if I could,” Jensen told him. “Don’t let it shake you, alright? It’s one man’s two cents, that’s all. I take it you have a clean copy of your work? You shouldn’t give the agent something that’s been hacked apart. It’s bad form.”

Jared nodded. “You’ll be around later? Working?”

“Come on over when you’re done. I’ll be home.” On impulse, Jensen pulled Jared down by his neck and gave him a dry, soft kiss, right on the lips. “Knock ‘em dead, kiddo. Good luck.”

The classroom had large, paned windows reaching up to the high ceiling. Jensen leaned against the sill, watching Jared dash across the quad through the wavy, distorted glass. This one night stand was turning into a week-long stint. Jensen’s thoughts skittered around Jared, but couldn’t find a safe place to land. “What am I doing?” Jensen asked the empty room.

 

  
  
 

 

The early evening sun snuck in through the slats of the blinds, slicing shadows across the computer screen.

Jensen’s head was resting on his desk. He was stuck hard on a way to describe the smell of wisteria without sounding like he was trying to go for some hack impression of Anne Rice.

A knock on the front door sounded like salvation. Jensen stepped out of his bathrobe, and all but flew down the stairs, thankful for the excuse to call it quits for the day.

“Did you land an agent?” Jensen asked when he opened the door for Jared.

“The jury’s still out on that,” Jared answered, digging a draft out of his backpack before dropping his bag inside the door and piling his coat on top of it. “Did you get somewhere today?”

Jensen avoided a direct answer. “Do you think a smell could be described as purple?” Twenty minutes of constant consideration, and all he could come up with was purple. He was such a goner.

“It depends on what kind of purple you’re talking about. Are you referring to grape soda? Or that one kind of bubble gum? I’d say that smells purple,” Jared mused. “Or maybe something majestic?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever smelled something majestic before.”

“You’re probably lucky. It sounds old. Musty.”

“Never mind.”

“Does the offer still stand?” Jared asked, holding his draft out to Jensen.

“Feeling brave, huh?” Jensen said, settling in on the couch with Jared beside him. He skimmed the first paragraph.

“More like hopeless,” Jared explained. “Something good has to come out of this week.”

Jensen tore his eyes away from his reading, and gave Jared a sidelong, weighted glance. “If memory serves, something good kinda already has.”

Jared shifted a little closer to him, “Jesus, Jensen. Don’t _do_ that.”

Jensen turned his attention back to the paper. “Do what?” he said, feigning innocence.

“Don’t look at me like that.” Jared tore the pages out of Jensen’s hands and let them fall to the floor, shoving Jensen backward with one hand on the center of his chest.

“Don’t you want me to—“ Jensen started, but cut off when Jared slotted his long body between Jensen’s legs and slowly rocked down.

“Later,” Jared said, almost growling out the word. He kissed Jensen, slicking his tongue into Jensen’s mouth. His hands moved urgently along Jensen’s ribs, rucking his shirt up.

“Later’s good,” Jensen said breathlessly. “Later’s really good.”

Jared pressed him into the couch, shoved one hand down his pants and started sucking on his neck, his tongue an insistent hot press against Jensen’s skin.

Jared circled his fist loosely around Jensen’s cock, teasing him into an aching hardness. Jensen needed more, thrusting in jerky, stilted movements, fighting against Jared’s weight as he fucked into his hand. He had his fists caught in Jared’s hair, his head thrown back against the arm of the couch, and a leg wrapped around Jared’s thigh.

He fought to yank Jared’s shirt up, splayed his hands on the warm skin of his back, fingernails digging into Jared’s flesh. Jared’s hips shot forward, cocks rubbing together through their jeans. “Harder, fuck,” Jared panted. “Harder.”

Jensen dug in, let his nails scrape up and down Jared’s back. Jared’s lips snagged on Jensen’s jaw, teeth grazing the skin as Jared rutted against him, air whistling from his lungs with small whining noises. Pressure was building in Jensen, way down low, intensifying when Jared looked down at him with dark eyes. He dove forward and licked at Jensen’s bottom lip, flicked his thumb over the head of Jensen’s cock just so, and Jensen came, sticky and hot inside of his shorts.

Jensen latched onto his neck, hard enough to bruise, and Jared’s rhythm faltered, became more forceful and erratic, rubbing off on Jensen with frantic movements. Jared threw his head back and came with a jolt and a bit off curse, collapsing on top of Jensen, still jerking him through Jensen’s own aftershocks in a sluggish kind of way.

Jared’s hand trailed wetly up the center of Jensen’s stomach, and Jensen couldn’t look away, he could only watch as Jared sucked his messy fingers into his mouth, licking the traces of Jensen’s come off them one at a time. Jensen wanted to laugh. It was almost prissy, dainty in its deliberateness.

He sealed their mouths together, a lazy twist of tongues and teeth, and then tucked his head under Jensen’s chin as he caught his breath. They were sticky, still fully clothed, their shirts clinging to their backs. The buckle of Jared’s loosened belt dug uncomfortably into Jensen’s thigh, but he was too lethargic to do a damn thing about it.

“I have a confession,” Jared said, still a bit breathless.

Jensen felt a stirring in his chest, a small amount of apprehension. “Go ahead,” he said carefully. He brushed his fingertips through Jared’s hair. It was sappy, but screw it, he liked the way it slipped between his fingers, the texture of it, coarse and soft all at once.

“I have no idea what you talked about in the workshop today,” Jared admitted.

Jensen breathed a relieved chuckle. “Awesome. That makes two of us.”

“It’s not like I don’t try to pay attention. It’s just your fucking _mouth_. You have this habit of touching your bottom lip when you’re thinking or listening to somebody. And you’re always licking your lips.”

“Do I?” Jensen asked. “Well, I really wish that you would stop chewing on your pen caps so damn much. It’s distracting.”

“How are you so sure I’m not doing it on purpose?”

“Are you?”

“Maybe,” Jared answered, shifting and settling himself more comfortably between Jensen’s legs.

“Do you think that the others are on to us?” Jensen asked, an indistinct sort of concern starting to form in the back of his mind.

“Would you care if they were?”

Jensen considered the question. Understanding socially acceptable forms of morality had never been his strong suit, and besides, he didn’t think that he was breaking any of the rules. They were sort of fast and loose in the first place. “Not particularly,” he mused. “Should we take a look at your writing sample?” Jensen gestured toward the manuscript on the floor. “Is it later now?”

“Hmmm. Not later enough. Party at Reedy’s tomorrow,” Jared said, his voice taking on a groggy, sleepy quality.

“You don’t say.”

“You wanna be my date?”

Jensen shifted a little awkwardly. “That’s a loaded question,” he said.

“Would it make you feel any better if I called you my wingman instead?”

“Not particularly.” He didn’t want to go. The very thought of spending any amount of time in the clutches of that man made his skin crawl. Even if the food was good, and the booze was free and plentiful. He’d probably have to wear something dressy, and what’s worse, a fucking tie. What he said next actually surprised him. “Sure, I’ll go.”

Jared smiled up at him, a crooked little thing, his chin propped on the center of Jensen’s chest. His eyes were hazy and unfocused, like they couldn’t find a clear spot to settle. “Pushover.”

“Fuck you,” Jensen said. .

“Maybe after a nap.”

Jensen laid there, one hand tangled in Jared’s hair, the other spread across his back as Jared’s breathing took on the deep, consistent rhythm of sleep. He had a cramp in his neck from the awkward angle, his left foot was slowly going numb, and he couldn’t catch a deep breath because of Jared’s heavy weight pushing down on his chest. He had an editor breathing down his neck, an advance on a novel that he had no plot for, his bank account was starting to get frighteningly low, and he hadn’t been this happy in a very, very long time.

 

  
  
 

  
 

The kitchen counter held everything he needed: a tub of peanut butter and two spoons, a bottle of red wine and another of white, his stash of good bourbon and a couple of glasses, three packs of gum, a bag of potato chips and his copy of _Bartlett’s Book of Familiar Quotations_.

Jared and Misha sat at the table, caffeinating their way through the early morning hour and trading weighty glances.

“That’s a fully stocked bar for seven in the morning,” Jared eyed the array of bottles.

“Don’t you have something you need to be doing?” Jensen grumbled.

“Not until this afternoon. I was hoping to bum a ride to class, teach.”

Jensen ignored him in favor of strategically stacking his provisions in an attempt to make one trip up the stairs. He bundled everything in his arms, awkwardly grabbed a box of cereal and tucked it under his chin, turning to face his audience. “What?” he said.

“Maybe a picnic basket would help,” Jared suggested.

“It’s part of his process,” Misha told Jared. “The peanut butter is crucial.”

Jensen marched up the stairs and laid his provisions out on his desk, poured two fingers of bourbon into a glass, and rolled up his sleeves. He went to the door, thumbed the lock, and effectively began his self-imposed exile.

He emerged two hours later with the first ten pages. Jared was at the counter, making himself some food.  It didn’t look like Misha had moved once from the table, as if he was a posted sentinel on some sort of deathwatch.

“Need more peanut butter?” Jared asked.

With a flick of his wrist, Jensen tossed the pages across the table to Misha. “Sock it to me,” he said.

“I’ll go,” Jared said, ready to abandon his meal.

“No, stay,” Jensen urged. “Call it a learning experience.”

A silence that was heavier than a truckload of cinderblocks descended upon the room as Misha started to read. Jensen watched him closely, trying to gauge even the smallest reaction, but Misha had his poker face pulled down snug. After a tense few minutes, he finished the last page, flipped them over and started again at the beginning.

Jared crossed over to Jensen, put a reassuring hand on his back and waited.

Misha finished the second read through and looked up to Jensen. There was a long pause, and Jensen’s mind brought up an image of standing before the judge waiting for his pronouncement of sentence. He had the distinct feeling that it was going to be twenty years to life.

Misha took a deep breath before speaking. “It’s good. It’s really fucking good.”

Jensen leaned back against his chair, a long-held breath rushing out of his lungs. Jared gave his shoulder an encouraging squeeze and went back to making them breakfast.

Misha tented his fingers on the draft, pushing it back across the table toward Jensen. “Now make it better.”

The clang of Jared dropping something in the sink behind him made Jensen jump. “What?” Jensen said.

“It’s better than at least ninety percent of the stuff that’s come out this year, that much is obvious. But you’re faking it, Jensen. I’ve read enough of your stuff to know that you can do better.”

Jensen fell forward, letting his forehead sink to the hard surface of the wooden table.

“You look like you’re expecting to be beaten,” Misha observed.

“Maybe I already have been.”

“Jared?” Misha said, not looking away from Jensen, “would you mind giving us a minute?”

It was with no small amount of relief that Jared dashed toward the front door, closing it quietly behind himself.

“It’s high time you come clean with me, because this is ridiculous. And worse, maudlin. Don’t get so damn down on yourself. It’ll all work out in the end.”

Jensen tried to school his voice, to punch back a wave of panic. “How much of a choice do I have, really?” he asked. “I could lose everything. The car…” There were only two reasons that his editor would travel all the way up here to meet with him in person, WriterWorks notwithstanding. Jensen didn’t like the sound of either of them. “Am I gonna have to sell the car?” He swallowed, his tongue suddenly feeling swollen and too big for his mouth.

Misha stood up and started pacing the length of the room. He sighed, tried to hide a grimace with very little success. He turned half away from Jensen, his shoulders in a defeated slump as he jammed his hands into his pants pockets. “You tell me, Jensen. The car is most likely the least of your problems right now and we both know it.”

Jensen threw his hands in the air, and let them fall to the table with a slap. “It’s the only collateral I have at this point. The advance is almost gone. I’m only six months into the mortgage on the house, so that still belongs to the bank. No one’s buying the books much anymore, at least not until I put something else out to renew interest in them. I can’t ride along on _Limited Break_ forever.”

“You’re real busy focusing on the problems here. It’s time to turn it around.”

“The rub is that I have a very specific set of skills in my arsenal, and not one of them is even the least bit remotely useful in the real world.”

“It should be obvious to you, then. Write, for fuck’s sake. Just write. It’s what you do.”

“How much time can you give me? Give me a deadline.”

“Your deadline was about two months ago.”

“Then give me a new one,” Jensen said. “How long can you hold them off?”

Misha was pensive for a few moments, his mouth set in a thin line. Jensen could almost hear him ticking days off of the calendar in his head. “This is how it works,” Misha started, “you string me along, and then I string the editor-in-chief along, who then dangles some sort of carrot in front of the publisher. It turns into this complex system of weights and pulleys and no one knows who’s plucking whose strings.”

Jensen covered his mouth to hide his smile. “I’m pretty sure you’re mixing your metaphors.”

Misha held up a finger, eyebrows raised. “Yes, but at least I mix them masterfully.”

“And you may have had a short foray into musical theory for a second back there, but I sorta lost track.”

Misha grinned at him, but then turned serious again a second later. “Give me another twenty pages before I leave. Even if they’re crap by your standards. It should be enough to keep the wolves from banging down the door for another month. But that’s it. One month. It’s all I can give you. I’ve got expectations to live up to as well, you know.”

“What do they expect from you?”

“Competency for one. It’s a real bitch.”

“Well, HarperCollins knew who you were and how you worked, and decided to hire you anyway,” Jensen pointed out.

“It was probably quite stupid on their part. But back then I had you.”

“You still do have me.”

Misha squinted at him, his head quirked at an angle. “Do I? Are you sure of that?”

“I haven’t let you down yet, have I?” Jensen paused. “On second thought, don’t answer that,” he said, scraping back his chair and heading for the front door.

Jared was sitting on the porch swing, arms crossed tightly over his chest against the cold. Jensen could hear the chatter of his teeth when he sat down next to him.  He leaned into Jared, resting his temple against his shoulder.

“Any chance you have twenty pages of something awesome on hand? Something that sounds enough like my writing style to fool Misha?”

Jared gave him a piercing look. “Are you gonna have to sell the car?” he asked, as if he was listening in on their conversation.

“God, I hope not.”

Jared put an arm around him. “Good. It’s a fucking awesome car.”

They stayed silent for a long time, listening to the creak of the metal chain as the swing swayed slowly back and forth. Jared finally spoke. “Are you stuck?” he asked, hesitant, like he didn’t want to say it out loud, like breathing air into the idea might miraculously bring it to life.

“I don’t know.”

“It should be pretty clear,” Jared told him. “You said so yourself. A writer has something worthwhile to say, or not. Either you’re stuck or you aren’t.”

Jensen took his time putting his thoughts together. “You wake up one morning, and you do the same thing that you've done every single day. You drink your coffee and put orange marmalade on your toast and put on your favorite sweatshirt and you call your mother. And then you sit down in your writing spot and something amazing happens. You know it's amazing as it hits the page, and other people think it's amazing and let you know it. So here we are, six months down the line and it's time to do it all over again. Same coffee, same goddamn orange marmalade, and your mom's still happy to hear from you. It's time to write and there's nothing but a blank page staring you down and not a single word comes to mind to fill it up. And you ask yourself what's the difference? What's the difference between now and then?"

Jared seemed to consider this for a while. “You’ve gotten yourself in a hole, and spending day after day up in your little attic isn’t helping. You’re still you. You still have all the words up there,” he touched his cold fingers to Jensen’s temple. “We just have to give you something to write about.”

“How do you propose we do that?”

Jared gave him a soft smile and knocked their feet together. “We’ll figure something out.”

 

 

[   
](http://riyku.livejournal.com/12915.html)

  

  


 

 

  
  
  
Jensen leaned against his car and pulled at his tie, fiddled with the lapels of his suit jacket and straightened his belt. Misha circled the car with a joint pinched between this thumb and his first finger. He took a long drag and held it in, speaking through his exhale in a way that made his voice sound deeper. “Time to pay your penance.”  
  
Reedy’s house loomed ominously before them, light spilling out through the tall windows. It positively screamed conspicuous consumption, from the curtains thrown open to reveal an expensive looking crystal chandelier in the dining room, to the plate glass window on the opposite side of the door that allowed for a shotgun view right through the house to the water on the other side.  
  
Jensen gave Misha a grateful nod when he passed the joint over. This sort of get together wasn’t exactly what he wanted to do with his Wednesday evening. “The sooner we start, the sooner we’ll be done. These people are so goddamned up on themselves.”  
  
“Comes with the territory,” Misha noted. “All writers are like that. You can barely see over their egos.”  
  
“Present company excluded, right?” Jensen asked. Misha kept silent, and Jensen sucked down half the joint, pinching the cherry off of the end. He stuck it in the inside pocket of his jacket. “Just for that, I’m keeping the rest of this.”  
  
A throng of people could be seen in the glassed-off porch to the side of the house, and Jensen and Misha slogged through the slushy snow to the side door. It was stuffy inside, and not because of the temperature.  
  
Folks from the college rubbed shoulders with minor dignitaries and well-known financial supporters of the school. The whole thing was a fairly shameless ploy to get people to donate to the college’s school of creative writing. It left a bad taste in Jensen’s mouth.  
  
He wound his way through the thin crowd in search of Jared and the cocktail bar, in no particular order. Jared was in the dining room, an expensive looking crystal wine glass in his hand and a more expensive looking suit on his shoulders. His other hand was jammed into his pants pocket, and Jensen noted a distinct lack of casual touches going on. A little confusing, since he’d thought that Jared simply worked that way. He was speaking with an older woman wearing a sparkling silver evening dress that matched the color of her hair, a false smile plastered onto his face.  
  
Jensen detoured toward the bar, downed a Crown and Coke in three gulps. No use beating around the bush with it, he surmised, and started to weave his way toward Jared.  
  
His end goal was almost achieved when he was intercepted by Reedy, who slid in right in front of him and stopped him in his tracks.  
  
“So good to see you.” Reedy stuck out his hand and Jensen just stared at it.  
  
“Thanks for the bash,” Jensen said, proving that his mama did fetch him up right after all, no matter what anybody said.  
  
“I picked up _Limited Break_ , and again read your passage on South Dakota the other day.” The dark red wine in the man’s glass sloshed dangerously near the lip as he gestured.  
  
“Did it change much?” Jensen asked as he slid past the guy, leaving Reedy behind him to gape for a moment. He really needed to work to perfect the act of artful dodging.  
  
He joined Jared, and gave the woman he was speaking to his most disarming smile. “May I steal him away for a moment?” he asked.  
  
“Thanks for that,” Jared said when the woman moved on. “C’mon.” Jared pulled him along with an arm wrapped around his shoulders. They ended up in the vacant entranceway of the house. Jared pointed up to the ceiling. “See?” he said, “track lighting.”  
  
Jensen approached the display case. There it was, Reedy’s most prized possession, his National Book award front and center for all to see. There wasn’t a lick of dust on the thing, and Jensen had visions of the guy polishing it daily with fancy cloth bought specifically for the purpose, a smug, stuffy grin on his face.  
  
“I think you should have gotten one of these instead.” Jared came up behind him, curling himself close against Jensen’s back, his hands finding their way to Jensen’s hips. “In fact, this one would look so much better shoved into your desk drawer. Right underneath your very first rejection letter.”  
  
He circled around Jensen, kneeling in front of the lock on the cabinet door. “Besides, something behind a locked door is just begging to be taken, isn’t it?”  
  
A thrill shot through Jensen, and he checked the open parlor door to see if anyone was there.  
  
“Keep an eye out,” Jared whispered. He pulled a couple of hairpins from the inside pocket of his jacket. “I took them from Mrs. Reedy,” he explained when Jensen gave him a shocked look. He started in on the lock, his tongue peeking out of the corner of his mouth as he worked.  
  
They both heard footfalls approaching, and Jared jumped up, two long strides eating up the space between them. “Roll with me on this,” he said, and then he was maneuvering Jensen against the wall, one leg shoved between Jensen’s thighs and his tongue down his throat.  
  
It was like a really awful spy novel, but Jensen still found himself fully on board with this turn of events, and buried his hands beneath Jared’s jacket, smoothing them along the soft material of his dress shirt.  
  
Someone cleared his throat from the doorway and they broke apart, Jared holding Jensen’s gaze for a beat before looking over. “Thank god,” he said, eyes lit up with mischief. “It’s just Misha.”  
  
“I was wondering what you two were up to,” Misha started, but went silent when Jensen shushed him with a hiss and a finger across his lips.  Jared dashed back to the case and started working on the lock again.  
  
Misha’s expression turned comically surprised. He stammered for a second, a huge grin spreading across his face. “I’ll be on look out,” he hissed.  
  
“How did you learn how to do this?” Jensen whispered to Jared as he leaned over the guy to watch.  
  
Jared glanced back at him. His smile was positively wicked. “Research for a book,” he explained, trying to hold back his laughter. “I can also hotwire a car, and disarm a home security system, depending on who made it.” There was a satisfying click and the door swung open on silent hinges. “I’ve also cracked open a safe. Only once, though. I doubt I could do that again.” Jared gingerly grabbed the award and held it out to Jensen.  
  
Jensen took it with hands that were shaking from adrenaline. It was small but heavy, probably about the size of a piece of paper.  
  
“Gentlemen?” Misha said from the doorway. “I enjoy a good act of larceny just as much as the next guy, but you should probably get going.”  
  
He disappeared into the sitting room, sliding the pocket door closed behind him. Jensen could hear him clearing his throat, and then he said loudly, “Mr. Kelley, Mrs. Kelley, lovely to see you two again.”  
  
Jensen was still struggling to figure out what was actually going on, and trying to catch up with the fact that this could sink him into a hell of a lot of hot water, when Jared started to yank at his arm, pulling him toward the front door. “We gotta go.” He grabbed his coat from the rack.  
  
Crime novels and mysteries had never been Jensen’s forte, he was much more of a character study type of guy, but all those hours of watching police procedurals on television had worn off on him to a degree. “But your fingerprints?”  
  
Jared paused before opening the front door. “I’ve been staying here. They’re all over the place. Besides, I never touched the case. The thing’s clean,” he said, like it was the most obvious thing on the planet, pushing Jensen out the door. “Shove it under your jacket.” Jared nodded to the stolen property in Jensen’s hands.  
  
“That won’t be suspicious at all.”  
  
Jared waved toward the sea of parked cars in front of the house. “There’s no one out here. You don’t want to get it wet, right?”  
  
They slipped and slid toward his car, the sidewalk a slushy mess beneath their feet. Jensen’s heart was lodged somewhere in his throat, and he was fighting a lunatic urge to giggle.  
  
He fell into the driver’s seat of his car, unlocked the passenger door and handed the award over to Jared. The gears ground and squealed going into reverse, Jensen hitting the gas too heavy, shooting them into a backward slide. The rear end of the car slid into the neighbor’s lawn, mud and water in a spray as they spun.  
  
Jared thumbed the radio. ‘Midnight Rider’ poured through the speakers. “It’s time to make good on our escape,” Jared said with mock seriousness.  
  
The whole situation started taking on a very surreal cast, like Jensen wasn’t a part of it, as if he was watching it in a movie. He leaned forward, his forehead landing on the steering wheel for a moment. Gregg Allman was on the stereo telling them that he wasn’t gonna let them catch the midnight rider. Jensen thought the guy had a point and worked the clutch, rocking them out of the rut and pulling out onto the slick pavement.  
  
The ice was coming down hard, sticking to the windshield and making the light look alien and refracted. The windshield wipers scraped ineffectively along the glass. Jensen knew he should slow down. He felt the tenuous grip of the tires on the asphalt slipping with every slight curve of the road.  
  
Jared was still grinning beside him, clutching the plaque close to his chest. “I’d give anything to see the look on his face right about now.”  
  
“I’d give anything to be three states over right about now. Where to?”  
  
“I hear Mexico is nice this time of year,” Jared suggested. “They’d never find us.”  
  
“Canada’s closer, though,” Jensen said.  
  
Jensen drove without a goal in mind, vaguely in the direction of home but with no real desire to go there yet. The road was deserted, bare trees standing like ice covered skeletons on either side. He took a curve a little too fast, the back tires swinging around and losing their grip. He tried to correct it with hands moving quick on the wheel, but the car was hell bent on dancing to its own drummer and they spun out, oddly slow. Jared slapped the dashboard, his hands spread wide as the car came to a jarring stop, the front end of it colliding with a snow bank on the shoulder.  
  
“Holy fuck,” Jared said,  maniacal laughter bubbling up out of him. “Holy fuck,” he repeated, the stolen plaque sliding off of his lap and into the foot well of the car.  
  
“Can we? I just.” Jensen was rattled to the bone, a million miles away from a rational thought. His airways felt narrow, too narrow for a deep breath, and damn it he couldn’t stop his hands from shaking. His car chose that moment to give up, and stalled out with a shudder and a pathetic little cough.  
  
With a quick check to see if Jensen was alright, Jared jumped out of the car, circling to the front end. “I don’t think we’ll be able to rock out of this one. I might be able to push it,” Jared said through the open passenger door. He kicked some snow out from behind one of the front tires. “Want me to call a tow truck?”  
  
“I need a minute,” Jensen said as he got out of the car, grabbing his coat from the back seat and judiciously avoiding a glance at the front end of the thing. He didn’t want to see.  
  
Immediately, ice started sticking to his hair, melting and running down his scalp in shivery trails. It snuck into his shoes and numbed his toes. He knocked some of the ice off of the trunk of his car and lifted himself onto it. “I’ve got some matches in the glove compartment,” he said to Jared without turning around.  
  
The frame of the car swayed some when Jared closed the door. He held the matches out to Jensen and said, “I don’t think this is enough to melt your way out.”  
  
Jensen dug around in his pocket for the joint he’d commandeered from Misha and lit it, sucking down a long drag and holding it in. He exhaled, the smoke rising up in a long, thin line, and passed it over to Jared. The knot at the base of his neck started to loosen by a fraction.  
  
Jared took a hit and leaned forward, pressing his mouth to Jensen’s. Jared’s lips felt cold as he shotgunned it, his tongue sneaking a taste of Jensen’s mouth before he started to pull away, but Jensen moved with him, breathing it back into Jared’s lungs.  
  
Jared joined him on the trunk, shoulder to shoulder and hip to hip. The distant sound of sirens cut through the quiet. “You think that’s for us?” Jared asked.  
  
“Maybe,” Jensen replied. “Probably not.”  He rubbed at his eyes.  "My car," he said plaintively.  
  
"It's just a hunk of Detroit pig-iron," Jared reminded him.    
  
"Technically, it's  English pig-iron."  
  
"Doesn't matter where it's from.  It's still just stuff.  Maybe you're getting too bogged down in it."  
  
Jensen grunted.  The guy had a point.  But what he didn't understand was that his car was more than that.  It was a bright, shiny reminder that--not terribly long ago--Jensen had been talented enough that someone had willingly paid him because of the way he put thoughts down on paper.    
  
“Besides, it's only a busted headlight,” Jared said. “Everything else looks fine. It’s just a busted headlight.”  
  
“Good to know.”  
  
Jared shifted some, obviously cold. His hair was sticking to his face in icy clumps. “Maybe we should call the tow truck,” Jensen said. “Your lips are moving past blue and heading straight into purple.”  
  
“Purple,” Jared mused. “What were you trying to describe the other day, anyway?”  
  
Jensen smiled. Yesterday felt like a year ago. “The smell of wisteria,” Jensen answered.  
  
Jared blew into his cupped hands for a few seconds. “It smells like honey. Like burnt cork and honey,” he said.  
  
Jensen nodded. Sometimes it was best to be literal.  
  
“You’re looking for springtime,” Jared said, squinting at him.  
  
“I always am.”  
  
They were bone soaked and mud splattered by the time they pushed the car back onto the road. Jensen was irritated, his head thumping with a deep ache, starting to feel slightly hung over from the booze and the grass.  
  
“You’d better take me back,” Jared said. “It might look weird if I disappear completely right now.”  
  
Jensen eyed Jared’s clothes, filthy and disarrayed, looking like he’d gone a few rounds with an avalanche. There was a streak of mud on his forehead, and Jensen scrubbed at it with his sleeve. “It might look weirder if you showed up.”  
  
Jared shrugged. “I’ll put some spin on it. We’re storytellers, Jensen. Professional liars. It’s what we do.”  
  
“Speak for yourself,” Jensen shot back, but Jared let it slide.  
  
If Jensen let go of the steering wheel, his car tried to make a left hand turn on its own. The alignment was screwed up, and there was a discouraging clanking noise when he shifted into second. He ignored Jared’s wince at the sound and kept the wheel turned to the right to keep them on the straight and narrow.  
  
Only a few cars were parked in front of Reedy’s house by the time they made it back. The ground floor was dark, but a soft, golden light shone through one of the upstairs windows, and Jensen felt a stab of hope that Jared might be able to sneak in, no questions asked.  
  
“I’ve been thinking,” Jared began, “about your book and what you said.”  
  
Jensen bit back a groan. He was so very tired of living under the shadow of that book, and scared to death that he’d unintentionally set the bar so out of reach that he’d never be able to even touch it again.  
  
“You said that the main character wasn’t you. But I think that’s kinda bullshit,” Jared said.  
  
“I’ll let you in on a secret,” Jensen said, propping his arm atop the wheel of the car and leaning in toward Jared. “ _Limited Break_ doesn’t _say_ anything. There is no higher message in it. Nothing about class-consciousness. It’s not allegory or satire, or whatever else reviewers might have read into thing. Hell, I nabbed the title for it off of a pack of cigarettes I’d found in the glove compartment of my car. That book?” Jensen shook his head. “It’s about a guy just trying to get home, and making a conscious decision to take the long way there. That’s all it’s ever been about. It never meant anything.”  
  
Jared nodded slowly, the melting ice on the windshield painting shadows that streaked down his face. When he spoke, he didn’t meet Jensen’s gaze, only continued to squint through the glass. “You wrote a review once, a few years ago for _The Post_ , maybe? I can’t remember, and I can’t remember which novel you were critiquing, but that’s not the important part.” He heaved a breath, his chest expanding. Jensen could smell the mint of his chewing gum. “Anyway. You said that the meanings of some books don’t exist outside of the reader's mind.”  
  
Jensen chuckled at that. “Yeah, sounds like me. I probably wrote that because I had no idea what the book was about and needed to hit a word count.”  
  
Jared ignored him and barreled forward, “I think you just proved your own point right now. That quote…I’ve never forgotten it.” He reached for the handle on the car door. “Because your book? It _does_ mean something. At least it does least to me. I suppose in a big way it always will.” He got out quickly, the force of the door closing behind him rocking the car on its tires.  
  
Jensen watched as Jared made his careful way up the sidewalk, slipping a little on the ice with his hands buried in his pockets and his shoulders hunched forward. Jensen sat there for a while, listening to the deep purr of the engine and staring at the book award still resting on the floor mat, the light a dull reflection on the brushed brass nameplate.  
  
He’d fucked up, but he didn’t know how. He wasn’t sure why it mattered, only that it did, somehow.  
  


 

  
  
  
Historically, morning always had a way of sneaking up on Jensen. The smell of coffee rising up from the kitchen below brought him back to the here and now. He had graphite on his fingertips; they were shiny grey and slick with the stuff, and dark red indentations marred the first two fingers of his right hand from gripping the pencil too hard. Ticonderoga number two’s. The good ones.  
  
Jensen growled at the hesitant knock on his office door, and Misha came in, a coffee cup in his hand and a hopeful expression on his face. “Have you been up all night?”  
  
“Looks that way,” Jensen said, trying to hold on to the thread of the story he was working on: an allegorical tale of a tall, broad-backed soldier with angled, hazel eyes trying to fight his way out of a mission gone sour in a snow packed region of northern Siberia. At some point the snow had turned into a metaphor for the military industrial complex. In the harsh light of day it would probably read a bit heavy-handed, but at this moment Jensen didn’t actually give a damn.  
  
He turned his attention back to his notebook, read through the last few paragraphs and started to write again, his pencil scratching across the paper. Misha kept quiet, pulled a book off of Jensen’s shelf and started thumbing through it with the occasional idle but interested glance over Jensen’s shoulder.  
  
Another page and a half scribbled out in longhand and Jensen was done. He ripped the pages out of the notebook, small tags of paper littering the surface of his desk. “Here,” Jensen said, all but throwing them at his editor. “All yours.”  
  
“Aren’t you gonna do another read through?”  
  
Jensen shook his head. “Don’t think I need to.”  
  
“Is this your ego or your confidence talking?” Misha asked.  
  
“Probably both. Plus exhaustion.”  
  
“The holy triumvirate. Praise the lord,” Misha said, and wandered back down the stairs, his coffee forgotten on the desk and his eyes glued to the pages.  
  
The morning was bright, sunlight glinting off of the ice-covered streets. Jensen finished Misha’s abandoned coffee, squinting through his window. He felt vaguely nauseated with lack of sleep. Jensen went downstairs, scrubbed his face in the kitchen sink, rummaged around in the cabinets and came up with a box of cereal.  
  
He joined Misha on the couch, propped his heels on the coffee table and waited for Misha to finish reading.  
  
“Any chance I could get you to type it up?” Misha asked once he was done.  
  
“Slim,” Jensen said around a mouthful of dry cereal. “Does it pass muster?”  
  
“It’s great,” Misha said. “But you already knew that.”  
  
“It’s still good to hear it coming from you.”  He leaned back on the couch, his eyes stinging when he closed them. “How about a book of short stories? An anthology? You think you could slide one of those through?”  
  
“Give me a dozen more like this, and I’ll manage,” Misha said. Jensen felt the cushions shift as Misha stood. He scuffed a hand through Jensen’s hair. “I’ll wake you up in an hour. Young minds to mold and all that.”  
  


 

  
  
  
Jensen sat on the steps to the building, chewing on the end of his pencil, reading over the last paragraph he’d written and curiously craving butterscotch.  
  
The walk to the college had taken twice as long as it should have. Jensen had found himself repeatedly stopping, pulling a notebook out of his bag and jotting down notes, words and phrases. By the time he got to the building, he had another story completely plotted and partially written, leaning his notebook against telephone poles and parking meters on his path.  
  
Staring across the nearly empty quad, Jensen watched as Jared drew closer, accompanied by a man that Jensen didn’t recognize.  The guy’s business suit and briefcase told him that he was probably an editor or an agent. They shook hands. Even from this distance, Jensen could see the smile quickly slip from Jared’s face as he turned in Jensen’s direction.  
  
Jared dropped his backpack and sat down near Jensen on the marble stairs. He was only two feet away, but it felt a lot further.  
  
“Fun night last night,” Jensen said.  
  
“At least it wasn’t boring.”  
  
“Are we on the lamb yet?”  
  
Jared shook his head. “The bastard drank three bottles of wine last night. His wife had to pour him into bed. And then she tried to hit on me. Talk about awkward.”  
  
“Did it work?” Jensen teased.  
  
Jared quietly chuckled. “Of course not.”  
  
“Good. I didn’t want to fight her for you. It wouldn’t have been a fair fight.”  
  
“For you or for her?”  
  
“For either of us,” Jensen said. He wondered if Jared was cluing in on what he was really saying: that today was the last day of the workshop, the last time they’d have a convenient, ready-made excuse to see each other, that Jensen didn’t like the idea one iota, and was hoping that Jared didn’t either, and finally that Jensen was too chicken to actually say any of this outright. “It looks like we might have dodged a bullet, huh?” Jensen asked instead.  
  
“Only temporarily. We still need to keep an eye out for the ricochet.”  
  


 

  
  
  
Jensen had come to the end of his outline for the workshop. He opened the floor to some questions to kill some time.  
  
“How do you get published?” Annie asked him, and Jensen smiled. Truth was, it always came down to that.  
  
“Alchemy,” Jensen replied. Confused expressions confronted him all around, and he realized some elaboration might be in order. “It’s basically one part science and three parts magic.” Jensen circled to the whiteboard and leaned on the metal tray. “First you’ve got to write something amazing. And believe me when I say that the writing has got to be the easy part.”  
  
There were snickers around the table, a lot of sidelong looks and eyes rolling. Jared leaned his elbows on the table and propped his chin in a hand, started twirling his pencil between his fingers in a hypnotic sort of way.  
  
“You don’t have to take my word for it, but the science is in the writing,” Jensen continued. “It’s the only part that you can control. I’m sure that every single one of you has something that could be published squirreled away somewhere.”  
  
He was met with more dubious glances, but powered on. “But actually getting it published is where the magic comes in. Or maybe it makes more sense to call it synchronicity,” Jensen mused. “The right set of eyes has to see it at exactly the right time, and hopefully that set of eyes belongs to an editor or an agent. That guy has to be in the right frame of mind to read whatever you’ve written, have the right kind of connections and enough persuasion at his command to convince the powers that be to give it a chance. Add to that a whole lotta luck, and you’ve got it made.”  
  


 

  
  
The front door was curiously open when Jensen got home, he could hear music coming from the living room and the sound of too many people banging around in the kitchen. Misha met him in the hallway, two cases of beer weighing him down.  
  
“You’re back,” he said, passing the beer over to Jensen. “Put this in the fridge. I’m having a party. I hope you don’t mind.”  
  
Jensen stammered. “A party?”  
  
“That shindig last night left a bad taste in my mouth. Had to throw my own to wash it out.”  
  
“But this is my house.”  
  
Misha smiled at him. “Well, you’re invited, obviously. But only after you hand me over another ten good pages. It’s your ticket for admission.”  
  
A group of people came storming in through the front door, talking loudly. Jensen didn’t recognize any of them and had to dodge out of their way. Moments later, a clatter came from the kitchen that sounded like someone had just upended his utensils drawer into the kitchen sink.  
  
“How am I supposed to do that?”  
  
“I’ve seen you write a complete short story sitting smack dab in the middle of Union Station. I have faith in you.”  
  
Two hours and seven pages later, and the party downstairs had worked up to a very loud roar. A thunderous bang against his office door vibrated the walls. “That’s it,” Jensen gritted his teeth and yanked the door open, only to have all six and a half feet of a very tipsy Jared topple into his arms.  
  
“There you are,” Jared slurred, his limbs a sloppy tangle. He reeked of booze. “Reedy’s down there. I think he’s on to us.” Jared blinked owlishly.  
  
“Fuck,” Jensen spat. “Who let him in?” He’d thrown the award in the trunk of his car last night, and it was still in there. Nothing but a thin sheet of metal and a canvas tarp separating him from a certain dicey fate.  
  
“Front door’s open.” Jared swayed a little in the middle of the room, gesturing in the direction of the front of the house. “I think I’m gonna be sick.”  
  
“What have you been drinking?” Jensen asked, trying to steady Jared on his feet and having little success.  
  
“Don’t know. Tasted like rubbing alcohol. This dude brought it over in a mason jar. Said he made it in his back yard. It snuck up on me.”  
  
“Moonshine? Reedy’s here, I have his stolen property in the trunk of my car, and you’ve been drinking moonshine?”  
  
Jared seemed to consider it for a moment, his mouth set in a small pout. “I’d say that pretty well sums it up, yeah.”  
  
Jensen had to do something. The plaque couldn’t stay in his trunk, and he couldn’t count on not seeing Reedy on his way out the front door. That left only one option. He crossed to the window that opened out onto the slanted roof of his small porch. “You,” he said, pointing to Jared. “Sit down. Don’t break anything.”  
  
“You can’t leave me alone,” Jared said, a little too loudly. “What if he comes up here? What if I squeal?”  
  
“Will you?” Jensen said, struggling with the screen covering the window.  
  
“I can’t honestly answer that question with any degree of reliability at the moment.”  
  
“C’mon then.” He popped the screen loose. It flew from his hands and went skittering along the sloped roof, the corner of it lodging thankfully in the gutter. He had a heart stopping moment when he climbed out onto the ice-covered shingles and slid a full three feet before finding purchase.  
  
Jared was behind him, trying to find the right angle to fit his wide shoulders through the small opening of the window. “If you fall and kill yourself, I swear to god I’ll bury you right along with the fucking award,” Jensen said.  
  
Jared crawled out onto the roof on all fours, and in an oddly graceful move borne of drunken carelessness and some inborn agility, he swung off of the gutter to land in a crouch among the winter brown shrubbery. He staggered to his feet and held his arms up, as if he could somehow catch Jensen just like that. “I think the landing mighta knocked some of the buzz out of me,” Jared hissed up at him.  
  
“At least it was good for something,” Jensen whispered back.  
  
The plan was to scale the downspout, but his hands were frozen and his sneakers didn’t have the best traction. His fingers skidded on cold metal as he slid gracelessly toward the ground and landed in a heap on top of Jared, his elbows prodding into Jensen’s back and Jared’s knee digging into his hip. “I’m thirty years old,” Jensen muttered as Jared shoved him off, “and I’m sneaking out of my house. That I own. And live in by myself.”  
  
“You’ve never snuck out before?” Jared asked.  
  
“Never really had the occasion, no.”  
  
"Were you ever a teenager?"  
  
"No," Jensen answered, "I sprung out of my father's head, fully formed."  
  
"Remind me to thank him then," Jared said, keeping lookout while Jensen dug around in the trunk for the award.  
  
“What are we going to do with it?” Jensen said, shoving the thing at Jared.  
  
“I have an idea,”   
  


 

  
  
  
Like so many historic spots in New England, the college campus had a statue sitting in front of the main administration building of some Revolutionary War hero on horseback. Jared scrambled up onto the pedestal, holding on to the horse’s neck for balance. The statue’s arm was raised, a sword in hand pointing defiantly at some invisible foe. With a crack, Jared stuck the award on the sword point and jumped down, backing up to admire his handiwork. “The pen is mightier than the sword,” Jared intoned in a solemn voice as he joined Jensen.  
  
“Heavy on the symbolism. The writing department should appreciate that,” Jensen agreed.  
  
Jared curled an arm around Jensen’s shoulders, and Jensen leaned into him, fitted himself to Jared’s side, and slid a hand into Jared’s back pocket.  
  
With a mock salute, Jared said, “One if by land, two if by sea.”  
  
“Dude, that’s not Paul Revere.”  
  
They started off in the direction of Jensen’s house, cutting between two tall, looming buildings full of classrooms. Jared’s arm was solid and warm around him, holding him close. “That guy you were talking to today, he’s an agent right?” Jensen said. “Did you cut a deal?”  
  
Jared made a face. “I don’t want to think about it,” he said, his steps a little slower and hesitant. “I only have a couple of days left here, and…” he trailed off for a moment, looking over at Jensen. “Let’s just stick to the good stuff, okay?”  
  
Jensen didn’t want to think about what his life was going to look like a week from now. This was just a fling, a weeklong diversion. It had to be. Maybe he’d call him from time to time, and maybe Jensen would try and look him up next time he went to the city, and he’d definitely be sure to keep his ear to the ground and hope to see Jared’s work show up in the literary rags or on the bookstore shelf. But that was it.  
  
Jensen stopped and faced him full on. “Theft and vandalism is your idea of a good time?”  
  
Jared smiled. “It is when you’re around.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair, licked his lips. “Jensen, I—“  
  
But Jensen didn’t want to hear it; he was certain that whatever Jared was about to say was going to scare the hell out of him. Instead Jensen kissed him, buried his hands in Jared’s hair and sealed their mouths together. Jared’s lips were dry, a little chapped from the winter air, and his nose was cold as it slid along Jensen’s. Jared traced a thumb along Jensen’s jaw and deepened the kiss, heady traces of liquor on his tongue.  
  
Jared walked him backward, their feet stumbling together, aiming for the building’s uneven brick wall. His hands felt insistent on Jensen’s hips. His mouth was hot, a contrast to his frozen fingers when they inched beneath Jensen’s shirt and wandered to the small of his back.  
  
Jared had him pinned to the wall, their chests pressed together snug, and was working small miracles with his mouth, his lips and teeth and tongue. He slipped his thigh between Jensen’s and rocked into him slowly, a delicious pressure that went straight to Jensen’s dick. He was getting hard, every nerve in his body sandblasted with want. Jensen broke the kiss, skating his teeth along Jared’s jaw and down his neck. He flattened his tongue on the tremor of Jared’s pulse point and tightened his fists in Jared’s hair.  
  
Jared bucked forward with a low, snarling sound, grinding his thigh against Jensen’s dick. “Fuck,” Jensen gasped, his eyes slamming closed. “Do that again.”  
  
Jared’s fingernails dug into the flesh of Jensen’s back, and he pulled Jensen closer, not a sliver of space between them, his cock a hard line pressing into the cut of Jensen’s hip. Jensen licked at Jared’s bottom lip, sucked it into his mouth and nipped at it.  
  
Jensen saw red behind his closed eyelids, and a second later a harsh shout cut through the sound of their breathing.  
  
“Hey!”  
  
They both jumped, Jared’s hands darting away from Jensen and slapping the brick wall by his head. Jared swayed some in front of him, blinking like he’d just woken up.  
  
A light blinded Jensen, a barely visible silhouette of a man coming into focus behind it. It was only when the man lowered his flashlight that Jensen could see the yellow patch on the arm of his coat that marked him as campus security.  
  
The guy looked young, barely twenty, a baby face peeking out from beneath the hood of his heavy coat. Jensen guessed that he only had to shave twice a week.  
  
Jared peeled himself away from Jensen, turning with a mischievous smile as he swiped a thumb along his lower lip. Jensen tried to adjust himself in his pants, and missed the subtlety mark by about a mile.  
  
“Is there a problem here?” the guard asked.  
  
“Not until a couple of seconds ago,” Jared said.  
  
“What…” Realization slowly dawned on the guy’s face, and a blush began to color his cheeks. “Oh.” He clicked off his flashlight. He squinted in Jensen direction. “Wait a minute.  Are you Jensen Ackles?”  
  
“Well, fuck,” Jensen muttered to Jared, and Jared snorted a laugh.  
  
“You are,” the guard said, his voice cracking some. “We read your book in my contemporary lit class.”  
  
Jensen opened his mouth to speak, but Jared cut him off, already shoving Jensen in the direction of the street. “You might wanna go see what’s happening in front of the admin building. We saw a couple of kids sneaking around there earlier.”  
  
“It was a really great book,” the kid called after them.  
  
Jensen bit the inside of his cheek to stop from laughing. “Always happy to meet a fan,” he shouted over his shoulder.  


 

  
  
  
“I’m never drinking again.” Jared had his head on the small round table at the coffee shop, some frothy, sugary thing sitting ignored in front of him. Dark specks of cinnamon floated on the top. His eyes were bloodshot and swollen, his clothes were rumpled, and he smelled like booze was fleeing his body through his pores.  
  
“Moonshine,” Jensen said with a sage nod. “Mix half a glass of that stuff with some orange juice and you’ll be able to see Jesus and all his twelve apostles.”  
  
All Jared could manage was a moan.  
  
Jensen tried to pull him out of his daze. “Let’s get your head working before it caves in completely.” A woman dressed for work walked in and headed straight for the counter. There wasn’t anything particularly noteworthy about her. She had medium length brown hair, was average height, pretty in an everyday sort of way. “Write me something about her. Go.”  
  
Jared cracked open an eye and looked at the woman. “What?”  
  
“It’s a game. Make me want to read about her. Alright. I’ll start. Her name…her name is Oedipa Maas, she’s getting ready to cheat on her husband, who’s a car salesman.”  
  
Jared took over, showing a little bit of life. “But he used to be a DJ at a radio station. She spent the first ten years of her life walking on her hands, and when people asked her why, she told them it was because she wanted to look at the world from a different point of view.”  
  
Damn. Off the cuff, the guy was really good.  
  
They continued with every person who walked through the door, their names and scenarios and back-stories growing more and more farfetched. Jared had his chin resting on his forearm. “This is fun,” he said, and touched his fingertips to Jensen’s knuckles. “Sure beats moonshine.”  
  
“There’s not much in this world that’s better than moonshine.”  
  
Jared hooked their pointer fingers together. Something in his face softened.  “You are.”  
  
Jensen became lightheaded, felt something like a sudden change in cabin pressure, and somewhere inside of him something was falling.  But Jared was still looking at him with an expectant sort of expression that was about to cross the border into wariness.  
  
There were two ways to go. Jensen could take the easy road, lie through his teeth and make some kind of joke out of it. In the end he decided on the truth, and it was easier than he thought it would be. “Yeah, Jared. You too.” He brought Jared’s hand to his mouth and kissed his fingertips. “You’re a lot better than moonshine.”  
  
Jared grinned, dimples deep and his bloodshot eyes shining. Blinding, beautiful, and Jensen didn’t know how he was going to manage living without it.  


 

  


  
  
  
Jensen’s house looked like it had been run over by a freight train. Red plastic cups dotted every available surface, and bottles spilled out of the trashcan and onto the kitchen floor. Two people Jensen didn’t know were asleep in his guest room, and Misha was passed out face down on his couch. A honey brown leather coat lay crumpled beneath his coffee table, and Jensen fished it out, frowning appreciatively at the designer label. He tried it on; a little snug around the shoulders but not a bad fit overall. “The spoils of war,” Jensen said to the sleeping form of his editor and hung it in his closet.  
  
He ambled into the kitchen, picking up trash here and there. The sink held something that looked a lot like cherry flavored kool-aid.  
  
Cautiously, Jensen sniffed it, only to stumble backward a few quick steps, his eyes watering. High chance that his nose hairs were incinerated for good. Gingerly, he pulled the plug on his sink, surprised that his hand didn’t come out of the deal with a chemical peel.  
  
The window to his office stood open from last night, and the usually stuffy room was so cold Jensen could see his breath. He leaned out the window, grateful that the screen was still lodged in the gutter, and that the gutter itself remained intact. With a curse, Jensen jimmied himself onto the roof.  
  
“There’s got to be a good story behind this one.”  
  
Jensen startled at the hoarse sound of Misha’s voice through the window, the screen dropping from his hand and clattering on the shingles.  
  
Misha looked rather green, even the bright blue of his eyes seemed a little faded.  His hair was stuck flat to his head on one side and standing straight up on the other.  
  
“Maybe it’ll make it into a book one day,” Jensen said. He caught hold of the screen and shimmied back inside.  
  
“I always meant to ask you,” Misha said, rubbing his eyes. “The character of Dmitri in _Served with a Side of Redemption_ , that’s me, isn’t it? I’ve always wondered if you wrote me in as the butcher.”  
  
“You’ll have to keep on wondering,” Jensen replied. “I’m not the kind to kiss and tell.”  
  
“Bastard. Speaking of which, is Jared around?”  
  
Jensen shook his head. “Dropped him off at his patron’s a couple of hours ago. We’re gonna hit up that new Thai place for dinner tonight. The food’s so spicy I’m thinking it’ll shock the hangover right outta him. ”  
  
Misha crossed the room, dumped a pile of magazines from a chair unceremoniously onto the floor and sat down. He chewed on his lips for a minute, eyes downcast. “You like him, don’t you?”  
  
“Yeah. I really do.” There was no point in dodging the question.  
  
“Hmph.” Misha picked at his fingernails and looked at all points around the room except for Jensen. He shifted in his seat, crossing and uncrossing his legs. Everything about him screamed jittery and ill at ease.  
  
“What? Do I have to come to you so that you can vet my hook ups?” Jensen asked, only partially teasing. Misha’s demeanor was setting him off balance. A terrible thought smacked him in the face. “Are you jealous?” he said, incredulous.  
  
Misha rolled his eyes. “Jensen, if I wanted to get in your pants, I would have figured out a way to do it years ago. It’s not that.”  
  
“Then spill,” Jensen commanded.  
  
Misha took a deep breath and finally met his gaze. “Jared might have…implied that he wants me to sign him on.”  
  
Warning signals lit up in Jensen’s mind: flashing red lights, screeching sirens, the whole shebang. “What did he say, exactly?”  
  
“That he wanted me to read some of his stuff.”  
  
“Did you?”  
  
Misha scoffed. “No, of course not. I’m all yours. You know that. I won’t do it, especially because of you and me, and particularly because of the two of you. It all seems a bit too incestuous.”  
  
“Then what’s the problem?” Jensen’s mind was busy putting puzzle pieces together, and he really didn’t like the picture that was starting to appear.  
  
“It’s probably nothing.” Misha tried to wave it away, but the damage was done. “I’ve just spent too many years dealing with cut throats and scoundrels in this business. You writers are a deviously amoral bunch, every single one of you.”  
  
Jensen paced the length of the room, thoughtfully chewing on his thumbnail. “If that’s what he wants, then give it to him,” he told Misha.  
  
“Am I still high? I must still be high. Or you are, because I swear I just handed you a no-frills outline of exactly why I wasn’t going to cut him a deal.”  
  
“It might be worse if you don’t.” Misha started to question him, but Jensen barreled over it. “I’m calling in a favor, brother. Okay? Just do it.”  
  
“You don’t even know if he’s good.”  
  
Jensen grabbed a copy of _The Columbia Review_ from his desk and tossed it in Misha’s lap. “Page forty-seven. The guy’s good. In fact, he’s great.”  
  
  
  


 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Jensen stood at the side of the window and parted the curtains a fraction. A cab was pulling away from the curb, dirty yellow and splashing salty slush onto the side of his car. The knock on his door came a second later.  
  
It was a little tough to stand a guy up on a date when the guy knew where you lived.  
  
Jensen considered not answering it. There was no hard and fast rule stating that he had to. He could chalk the last several days up as an exercise in repeatedly awful decision making. Good fodder for his next novel, perhaps. Jared had played him as easy as a game of checkers, and he’d let it happen, an oblivious, fool smile plastered on his face the entire time.  
  
A rattle of the handle accompanied another knock on the door, and Jensen walked over to it, bare feet slapping on the floor. As much as he didn’t want to see Jared, there was a note of inevitability to the situation. Besides, if he didn’t answer, the felonious bastard would probably find a way to break in using nothing more than a loose nail from Jensen’s porch and maybe a credit card.  
  
Jared was all wide smiles and fast-talking when Jensen let him in. “It’s okay,” Jared said, pausing to kiss Jensen on his temple before moving past him into the house. “No big deal. I’m not mad, I swear. I know how it can get when you’re working. It’s easy to get wrapped up, and I’m sorry if I interrupted something good. I tried to call, but I think your phone might be dead?” He shrugged out of his coat, dumped it and his backpack on the couch and cut a path toward the kitchen. “Go back to work, forget I’m here. I can make us something to eat if you’re hungry. Are you hungry?”  
  
Jensen’s heart clenched at the sight of him. Jared was dressed for an honest to god date: jeans that actually fit him, riding low and hugging the curve of his ass in a way that made Jensen want to touch him, Texas belt buckle gleaming in the overhead stove light, a button down shirt with some black on black paisley pattern open at his neck. He’d tamed his mop of hair. It curled behind his ears, stray strands falling into his face. And Jesus, he smelled good. Aftershave. Expensive.  
  
Jensen tucked himself into the corner of the kitchen and faced Jared, knuckles white as he gripped the counter.  
Jared opened the fridge and bent to look inside, giving Jensen a view that was just this side of pornographic. He grabbed a pitcher of tea and poured himself a glass, just like he owned the joint. “Or we can still go out,” Jared continued. “I’m on board for anything, really.”  
  
“Jared, stop.”  
  
Wincing, Jared said, “I’m doing it again, aren’t I? That thing where I talk too fast and too much and come off like a complete creep.”  
  
“Just stop,” Jensen repeated.  
  
Jared leaned against the opposite counter, crossing one foot over the other, his body one graceful, continual line from head to toe. His posture made him look like he belonged on a dry, southern ranch somewhere, leaning against a weathered fence rail. He didn’t belong here, in a small New England town in the heart of winter, in some two-bit author’s kitchen, sucking all the air out of the room without any awareness that he was doing it. The only thing the guy needed was a cowboy hat. The image made Jensen want to squirm. All this, and now a cowboy kink sitting just as pretty as a cherry on top. How very stereotypical of him.  
  
“Come clean with me,” Jensen said.  
  
Jared did a hell of a job looking confused. He could probably add actor extraordinaire to his list of talents on his resume, right after author, liar, and deceiving son of a bitch. “I’d be glad to,” Jared said slowly, “but I think I need a little more information first.”  
  
“I talked to Misha,” Jensen said.  
  
It was obvious that Jared either failed to connect the dots, or else he was being purposefully hard-headed and obtuse. “Only natural, since he’s sorta living with you right now.”  
  
Jensen went on, anger heating his words. “I get it. Everyone always says that they come to this place because they want to perfect their craft, whatever the fuck that means, or learn from other authors, but we all know that’s bullshit. There’s only one reason you guys show up here for this week, and it’s because agents and editors flock to this place. It’s the only way a lot of you can get face time with the folks who usually hide behind answering machines and emails, or fucking rejection post-it notes. Or you get to meet with people like Reedy, or maybe even me. People who can shove doors open for you.”  
  
“That’s not necessarily true,” Jared cut in.  
  
“Yes it is,” Jensen countered him. “I know it. I’ve done it myself. And I still let you back me into a corner.”  
  
“Are we talking literally or figuratively here? Because I’m man enough to admit that I’m a little bit lost right now.”  
  
“Don’t think I’m stupid,” Jensen snapped. “I might be a pushover, and the absolute worst kind of fool, but I’m not dumb.”  
  
“Scratch that. I’m a lot lost right now,” Jared said.  
  
“You found out that Misha was my editor the first day we met. It wouldn’t take a lot of digging to find out that he’s a pretty big name at HarperCollins. Cue the hook-up, the theft and vandalism, a somewhat public sexual adventure, and mix that all together with the fact that you haven’t gotten a deal yet. You’re desperate. So of course you’d try to get something going with Misha. It’s the next logical step and makes perfect sense. Not only does he have a lot riding on me, he’s also my best friend. You knew he’d do whatever he could to pull me out of a jam. He’s been doing it for almost a decade.” Jensen had his hands wrapped so tight against the counter that he was surprised the granite hadn’t cracked. He felt deflated. Used and used up. “The bitch of the thing is that you could have done it on your own, without all the bullshit. You’re fucking good, Jared. You remind me of Ali Smith, minus all the manic depression.”  
  
Jared was staring at his feet, nodding slowly. He looked at Jensen from beneath his brow, and when he laughed there wasn’t a lick of humor in it. “If you can cook up a plot like that, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to pump out a bestseller every two months.”  
  
He’d expected Jared to start in on a series of backpedaling excuses. Jensen crossed his arms and waited for them to hit, thought about perhaps taking notes.  
  
“You’re right on a couple of accounts,” Jared went on. “I’m desperate, and maybe I’ve tried to call in a favor to Misha, but not for the reasons you’re thinking. I asked him to read some of my stuff, sure, but I never even suggested that he take me on. I wanted to know if it was time for me to cut my losses, give up on my romantic idea of becoming a writer of stuff that mattered. I wanted to know if I had a chance in hell, and Misha is a straight shooter if ever I’ve met one. If he offered me a contract, I wouldn’t take it. Mainly because he’s yours, and also because I wouldn’t think that I’ve earned it.”  
  
A sliver of doubt wormed its way into Jensen’s wall of logic, started to splinter it like a rock to a windshield.  
  
“And maybe I did all those things—the stealing and the sneaking around—to remind you that there are still signs of life outside of your four walls. To give you something to write about, because the next time I see something new with your name on the cover on a bookstore shelf, my world will instantly turn into a much better place.” Jared gave him a sad smile. “And I guess I came on too strong, showing up at your workshop and turning up on your doorstep whenever I could spare a minute. But I met you less than a week ago, and I haven’t been able to get you out of my head since them. I can’t even find it in myself to actually try.”  
  
Jensen struggled to swallow past the sudden block in his throat.  
  
Jared wasn’t done. Not yet. “The way I see it, there are two possible ways for this story to end. Either you believe me or you don’t.” Jared shrugged. “So maybe you’ll believe me more sooner than later, and there will be some ridiculous scene straight out of a romantic comedy, you chasing me down at the airport or something. Or maybe twenty years from now, you’ll find a story I’ve published in the back of some stupid Playboy magazine, and have your very own little _Bridges of Madison County_ moment.”  
  
“Not a big fan of romantic comedies,” Jensen said. “But I do like Meryl Streep. I never read the book though.”  
  
Jared crossed the room with a couple of long strides. He hooked his hands around Jensen’s hips, and goddamnit, but Jensen let him. “It’s up to you, Jensen. But the one thing I do know is that I don’t write those kinds of stories. And I’m pretty sure that you don’t either.”  
  
“I fucked up, didn’t I?” Jensen asked, covering Jared’s hands with his own. His face felt hot, and he wanted to find the nearest appropriately large rock, crawl underneath it and hibernate until sometime next spring.  
  
Jared scrunched his nose and shook his head. “Not really. It’s your overactive imagination. Comes with the territory. Sort of an occupational hazard.” Jared pressed his lips to Jensen’s forehead. “Besides, I kinda like that you cast me in the part of a tall, dark, and mysterious stranger, who may or may not have some sort of hidden agenda.”  
  
“You have to understand my reasoning.”  
  
“Sure thing, Sherlock,” Jared said. “Hold on. Back up. You think I write like Ali Smith?”  
  
“Talk about a left-hand turn,” Jensen laughed. “But, yeah.”  
  
“I’ve only ever read _Hotel World_. That stream of consciousness chapter hits like a one-two punch to the gut. Huge shoes to fill.”  
  
“Good thing you’ve got big feet.” Jensen slid up onto the counter and slung his arms loosely around Jared’s neck. He hooked an ankle around Jared’s thigh and pulled him in close. “Tomorrow.” Jensen left the thought unfinished.  
  
“We’re still not thinking about that,” Jared said, and kissed him, spreading his hands huge and warm on the small of Jensen’s back and digging in. Jensen squeezed his thighs along Jared’s hips and deepened the kiss, licking into Jared’s mouth, swallowing down the taste of him.  
  
Jared broke away. “Were you working?”  
  
“Actually, I was standing you up,” Jensen admitted, swiping the pad of his thumb along Jared’s bottom lip.  
  
“I blew that plan out of the water, didn’t I?”  
  
“Don’t think I mind so much anymore,” Jensen said, kissing him again.  
  
A wave of cold air told Jensen that Misha was home. He heard the skid of Misha’s footsteps coming to a stop right inside the kitchen door and pressed his lips to the corner of Jared mouth, then once again for good measure. “We just can’t catch a break these last few days,” he whispered, and then looked pointedly over Jared’s shoulder.  
  
The startled look on Misha’s face might have been comical if Jensen wasn’t incredibly turned on and hell bent on getting Jared in his bed as soon as possible.  
  
Misha gaped at them for a few seconds, and with some effort visibly recovered. “Oh for god’s sake,” he said. “I’m not gonna ask.”  
  
“Discretion is the better part of valor,” Jensen said.  
  
“Damned if I didn’t think that was most of the problem,” Misha shot back.  
  
Jared looked confused, but kept his mouth shut.  
  
Misha laid his briefcase on the table, thumbed the latches and produced a stack of papers with colored tabs sticking out all over. “Jared, I just need your signature in a few spots, and then you gentlemen can get back to…whatever it is you need to get back to.”  
  
Jared flipped through the papers, a slow realization dawning on his face and his mouth pressing into a tight, thin line. “Nope. No way. I mean, thank you. So much. But no.” Jared tried to pass them back to Misha, only Misha refused, stuck his hands up, palms forward like he was surrendering.  
  
“I just spent the last hour of my life selling a novel that I’ve never set eyes on, in the strictest sense of the word. I couldn’t even give my boss a title, much less a synopsis. It took a lot of fast-talking on my part, which granted, I’m sort of known for, but it still wasn’t easy.”  
  
“But that’s the problem,” Jared said. “You haven’t even seen it. I might suck. Actually, I’m pretty sure I can’t write my way out of a paper bag.”  
Misha turned his gaze to Jensen, boring into him. “Heaven help me, but I have two of you to deal with now.”  
  
“Not my fault,” Jensen said.  
  
“In reality it probably is all your fault. Alright, perhaps a little mine, but primarily yours.”  
  
Jensen tried on what he hoped was his most disarming smile.  
  
“Doesn’t work on me, brother. I’m immune,” Misha told him. He turned to Jared. “Please, tell me you have a novel. Tell me I haven’t just sold something that doesn’t actually exist.”  
  
“I have four,” Jared said. “And two more that need re-writes. They could probably be ready within a few weeks.”  
  
Jensen whistled low. “You wouldn’t mind me taking one of those off your hands? What’s a little plagiarism between friends?”  
  
Misha ignored him. “Thank god. I’m going to press my luck and ask you if you have any of them with you.”  
  
Jared disappeared from the room and returned less than a minute later, his backpack slung backward over his shoulder as he dug through it. He produced three thick manuscripts, several hundred pages each. They landed on the table with a heavy thud.  
  
Misha sighed. “Looks like my night just took a nosedive.”  
  
“You’re in heaven right now, and you know it,” Jensen chided.  
  
Misha gave him an impish smile. “You’re right. I am.” He tucked the novels into the crook of his arm. “This calls for some decent gin. Can I use your car?”  
  
Jensen dug the keys out of his pocket and tossed them over. “It pulls to the left nowadays.”  
  
“I’m not gonna ask.”  
  
“Please don’t,” Jensen said.  
  


 

  
  
  
Jared was spread out on the center of the bed, his back set in a gorgeous arch, arms above his head gripping the headboard so tightly his fingers were white with it. He was fighting the urge to drive his hips upward, shoving them deeper down into the mess of blankets and sheets instead, his body twisting and turning in small bursts.  
  
Jensen sucked a bruise on the smooth skin of Jared’s stomach, his hand loosely circling Jared’s dick, jerking him off, deliberately slow and teasing. Because of Jared, Jensen had wasted the day pacing the rooms of his house, pissed off and distracted. It wasn’t the guy’s fault, but Jensen felt the need to exact a little revenge. Besides, it bought him some time to enjoy the view.  
  
“C’mon, please,” Jared begged, and Jensen bit down on the mark he’d made, worrying the skin between his teeth.  
  
“Patience,” Jensen murmured, letting his lips drag and catch on Jared’s skin.  
  
Jared hissed, his head tossed back, beads of precome slicking the head of his dick. Jensen moved lower, pressed his tongue to Jared’s slit and hummed at the taste. A shock of want zipped through his body from his toes to the tips of his fingers.  
  
Jensen crawled up, blanketing Jared’s body with his own, his cock a heavy weight between his legs, so hard it almost hurt. He sealed their lips together, tongue tracing the shape of Jared’s teeth and the roof of his mouth, just holding on as Jared writhed beneath him.  
  
Need and want was building into a slow burn that lit up every cell in his body, and Jensen broke the kiss, blindly digging through his nightstand. He sat up to straddle Jared’s hips and pressed a condom and lube to Jared’s chest.  
  
Jared’s eyes became impossibly darker, and his hips rolled up at the sight. “Yeah,” Jared said and licked his lips. “Fuck yeah.” He pushed himself up and buried his face into the crook of Jensen’s neck.  
  
“’Fuck yeah’?” Jensen teased, smiling and angling his head to make room for Jared’s mouth. “You’ve written six books and all you can come up with is ‘fuck yeah’?”  
  
Jared let out a breathy laugh. “I wasn’t having sex while I was writing them,” he said, and manhandled Jensen, flipping them over. He popped the cap on the lube and slicked his fingers. “What?” he said in response to Jensen’s grin. “You want me to write you a sonnet?” He kneeled between Jensen’s legs, urging his thighs wider, jacking Jensen off slow with one hand and pressing a fingertip to Jensen’s hole with the other.  
  
“Form and function in poetry,” Jensen said through his gritted teeth. He was so turned on, wanting, anxious and apprehensive all at once.  
  
“You really know how to sweet talk a guy. Although I have to say that I’ve always preferred free form poetry to the more concrete conventions.”  
Jared pressed a finger inside, sending a jolt through Jensen’s body. He worked it in and out, eyes fixed on the spot where they were joined.  
  
“Don’t tell me you want to discuss poetic form right now,” Jared said as he raked his nails lightly along Jensen’s inner thigh. “I mean. I _could_ , if you want. But…” Jared trailed off, urging Jensen’s legs even further apart. He added a second finger to the first, and twisted his wrist in a way that made Jensen forget how to breathe. “Holy fuck, you feel so good,” Jared said, diving forward and mouthing at Jensen’s dick. He sucked Jensen down quickly, straight to the root as his fingers continued to open him up.  
  
It was too much, the tickle of Jared’s hair on his stomach, the feeling of Jared’s throat working around him and the slip slide of Jared’s fingers inside of him, a third now added to the other two. Pinpricks of light started dotting Jensen’s vision, and his orgasm slammed into him fast. His hips shot off the bed and he was coming down Jared’s throat, his hands tangled in Jared’s hair.  
  
Jared kept swallowing around him, finally pulling off, his lips dark and swollen, wet with spit and come. He wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand. “I wish,” Jared started, sliding his body along Jensen’s. He scratched his fingernails along Jensen’s sweaty scalp, kissed along Jensen’s throat, his mouth hot and slick. Centering a searching, dark gaze on Jensen’s face, he said, “God, Jensen. Look at you. I want—“  
  
Jensen shushed him with a kiss, trying to ignore this swooping, twisted up feeling deep in his stomach. He dug his heels into the backs of Jared’s thighs and slotted their hips together. Finding the condom in the wrecked tangle of blankets, Jensen ripped it open with his teeth, and pushed Jared back with one hand square in the center of his chest. “Please,” Jensen said, rolling the condom down Jared’s shaft, feeling the hot pulse of Jared’s flesh in his fist as he slicked him up. “C’mon.”  
  
Jensen bit on his bottom lip, squeezed his eyes shut and fought the need to squirm at the burning stretch of his body around Jared’s cock. Jared sunk into him, inch by inch, bottoming out with an explosive rush of air from his lungs.  
  
“Fuck,” Jensen hissed, experimenting with a small shift of his hips. The dull ache of being so full melted into a warmth that spiraled through his body. “Holy,” he panted, rolling his hips a little more forcefully. “Fuck.”  
  
Jared laughed, soft and low. He bit down on Jensen’s earlobe, teasing the skin between his teeth. “Who’s the poetic one, now?”  
  
Jensen set his nails into Jared’s back and his teeth into Jared’s shoulder as payback. Jared’s response was immediate; his whole body snapped forward, fucking into Jensen with a force that pushed them both along the bed, the headboard rattling against the wall. Jared pulled out, just the crown of his cock catching on Jensen’s rim, only to slam into him again.  
  
Jensen reeled with it, a crazy, non-sequitur part of his mind wondering if Jared was going to break his house or at least his bed. It didn’t matter. Not much mattered outside the sensation of Jared buried inside of him so deeply, and the slick slide of their skin as they moved together, the feeling of Jared’s mouth hot on his own. Not really kissing, more like breathing into each other.  
  
A high flush painted Jared’s cheekbones, sweat trailed down his temples and along his jaw. Jensen licked at Jared’s skin, tasted salt and the bitter traces of aftershave. He wrapped his arms tight around Jared’s neck and kept pace with Jared’s thrusts as they grew quicker and started to lose their rhythm. The muscles of Jared’s back tightened when he came, his head tossed back and his body slapping hard against Jensen’s ass. With his hips still working through the aftershocks of his orgasm, Jared licked into Jensen’s mouth. A breathless kiss that made Jensen feel like he might drown.  
  
Jared panted, rolled to his side and made quick work of the condom. He laughed. “Jensen Ackles,” he said, shaking his head. “I never would have thought that I’d end up here.” He turned toward Jensen, tucked his hands beneath his cheek and blinked slowly. “The craziest thing is that I can’t even tell anyone about it. No one would believe me.”  
  
“Yeah, right. I’m a myth,” Jensen said, his mouth twisting with sarcasm.  
  
“If you asked my last post modern lit class, they’d say that you are.”  
  
“Then I’m a hungry myth. Does the offer still stand?” Jensen asked.  
  
Jared snaked an arm under Jensen’s neck, absently stroking his shoulder. “In a few minutes,” he mumbled with a sated, tired smile. “I’ll make us pancakes.”  
  
Jensen watched Jared settle into sleep. Sweat was drying on their bodies and gluing them together, and Jensen was surprised to discover that he didn’t mind. Not at all. Within minutes, Jared’s eyes began to flicker beneath his closed eyelids, and his mouth started moving. The guy never kept quiet, not even in his sleep.  
  
Jensen rubbed their ankles together and whispered his name, getting no response. Jared was leaving tomorrow, and every fiber in Jensen’s body screamed at him to not waste a second of the few hours they had left.  
  
He closed his eyes, letting his mind wander into white picket fence thinking. Jensen knew that he could be impossible to get along with. He rankled easily, quickly lost patience with people and tended to open his mouth without thinking. Jensen was frequently solitary, often moody, and mulishly set in his ways.  
  
Jared understood him; he smiled in the face of Jensen’s sarcasm, ran unapologetically roughshod over Jensen’s stubborn streak. He knew when Jensen needed to be left alone. More importantly, he knew when he shouldn’t be.  
  
Jensen wasn’t going to let himself love Jared. It was impossible. Too late and too much. He could love parts of him, though. He’d allow for that.  
  
He loved Jared’s hands and all the tricks they played. The way they made him feel strung up and inside out. He loved that Jared knew all the words to every Allman Brothers song ever written, and that he liked his liquor sweet and his coffee even sweeter, but didn’t care much for chocolate. He loved the way his palms fit just right on the jut of Jared’s hipbones, and the shape of Jared’s mouth, the way he gritted his teeth and tossed his head back when Jensen touched him in a certain way. He loved Jared’s wicked smile, his biting humor, and the bright, infectious sound of his laugh. Jensen loved how he smelled, the way he tasted, and the sound of his own name in Jared’s mouth.  
  
Jensen splayed a hand on Jared’s chest, felt his heartbeat and the slow rise and fall of his breath. Jared hugged him a little tighter in his sleep when Jensen kissed his temple. He tucked a stray lock of hair behind Jared’s ear and felt girly as hell doing it. “Fuck it,” Jensen whispered, mostly to himself. “Don’t go. I don’t want you to go.”  
  


 

  
  
  
Jensen rolled over, stretched out his arm and cracked open an eye when the other half of the bed came up empty. The clock across the room told him it was hours before dawn and too early to be awake. There was an indistinct thudding noise coming from the ceiling, then the sound of chair legs scudding across the floor. He got up, found his jeans half kicked under the bed and stiffly pulled them on.  
  
An empty bottle of wine was sitting on the end table in the living room, red dregs in the bottom of the glass next to it. Misha was propped upright, legs folded beneath him in the chair. His face held a pensive expression as he flipped past another page in a manuscript, let it fall to join a pile of pages on the floor.  
  
Misha blinked at Jensen, refocusing, and then gave him a tired smile. He crossed his lips with a finger and pointed toward the ceiling.  
  
About half way up the stairs Jensen began to hear the scratchy sound of New Orleans jazz piping from his record player. The one and only King Oliver playing dixieland, and Jensen smiled at Jared’s taste in music, wondered how many more surprises Jared had tucked away.  
  
There was a sliver of light coming from the cracked door to Jensen’s study, and Jensen inched it open a little further, leaned against the wall and watched.  
  
Jared was bent over Jensen’s typewriter, the low electric hum of the thing complimenting the hiss of the vinyl record. He was shirtless, his jeans riding low and loose, bare feet sticking out of the frayed cuffs at the end. His messy hair teased at his neck and his spine, falling into his face when Jared leaned forward. The low, yellow colored light worked miracles on the muscles of Jared’s back and shoulders as he typed.  
  
He’d spent a lot of time with Jared over the last week, had spent much of that time studying him, truth be told. He could gauge Jared’s reaction to a dozen situations, and could tell when Jared’s smile was real, and when he was faking it. But right now he hardly recognized the guy. There was this level of concentration and composure that he didn’t think Jared had in him, some nearly tangible air of authority over whatever he was putting down on paper.  
  
Jensen wondered what he looked like when he wrote, figured he’d never find out. Writing for him had always been a fairly solitary thing. He liked his quiet, preferred complete void from outside influence. Even a sunny day could sometimes be too much of a diversion.  
  
Jared ripped the page out of the typewriter, inserted a new one without a second glance and kept on going. He filled up about half of it and flicked the curling page backward to look it over, his tongue sneaking out to tease at his slightly crooked tooth as he read. He grabbed a pencil from the desk, started to make a correction only to sit back, twirling the pencil between his fingers and muttering something low and unintelligible. A few more lines hit the page before Jared leaned back, tipped the front legs of the wooden chair off of the floor and worked out the kinks in his spine. “I know you’re there,” Jared said, startling Jensen and making him feel like he’d been caught. Jared waved an invitation.  
  
Jensen crossed the room, tucking himself into Jared’s outstretched arm. The number twelve was stamped on the top of the paper in the typewriter, and Jensen felt a short-lived flash of irrational jealousy. It would probably take him three weeks to write twelve typed pages at this point, and Jared had probably done it in a couple of hours. He avoided looking any further down the page. It was a matter of professional courtesy, after all.  
  
Jared’s fingers were cold when they curled around Jensen’s hip. Jensen leaned in, kissed the bridge of Jared’s nose, warmth infusing his body at the sight of Jared’s slow, soft smile. “I didn’t want to interrupt,” Jensen said. “Sounded like you had a good thing going.”  
  
“I don’t mind. It’s easy enough to come back to.” Jared pulled Jensen down to straddle his lap, hummed low as Jensen shifted and got comfortable. His hands wandered along the seams on the thighs of Jensen’s jeans. “I hope it doesn’t bother you that I used your typewriter.”  
  
Jensen shrugged. “Not really. It’s good to see someone knocking the dust off the old gal.”  
  
“You need to change the tape. I rewound it, but the letters are starting to fade.” Jared kissed the corner of Jensen’s mouth.  
  
“I know.” Jared dodged away when Jensen tried to kiss him back.  
  
“The ‘w’ kinda sticks.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
“So does the semi-colon.”  
  
“Really? I hardly ever use it,” Jensen said. “Compound sentences. Impressive.”  
  
“ _Complex_ -compound sentences. Look ‘em up.”  
  
Jensen tangled his hands in Jared’s hair, holding him steady as he ran his mouth along the length of Jared’s neck. Jared squirmed beneath him, brought their hips closer together. “I might have to. You’ve seen how I write,” Jensen continued, “it’s all grit and no grammar.”  
  
Jared laughed, a sound that skittered down Jensen’s spine and right back up again. “Hell, if it works.”  
  
Jensen made a slow circle of his hips, scratched his nails lightly down Jared’s chest. Jared was getting hard again, pressing into Jensen’s crotch, the head of his cock peeking out of the unhooked waistband of his jeans. It made Jensen’s mouth water.  
  
Jensen slid backward, off of Jared’s lap and pushed the chair away from the desk. He fell to his knees in front of Jared, yanking at his pants until they were a puddle on the floor.  
  
Jared’s hands were tight on his thighs when Jensen wrapped his mouth around him. He still tasted like lube and latex, mixed in with lingering traces of come. Jensen let his teeth gently graze the head of Jared’s cock, pressed his tongue right beneath the crown and sucked. He pulled with a soft pop, gathered spit and precome on his thumb and licked at it. Jared moaned, canted his hips a little and pushed a hand through Jensen’s hair.  
  
He dragged his lips down the length of Jared’s cock and back up, Jared’s flesh hot and heavy when he sucked him down again. Jared’s balls were pulled tight to his body, and Jensen rolled them between his fingers.  
  
“Holy fuck,” Jared said, looking down at him, his mouth slack and his bangs spilling across his face. He touched Jensen’s cheek, felt the shape of his own cock in Jensen’s mouth and let his eyes slip closed.  
  
Jensen hummed. The vibration made Jared’s toes curl and his hand tighten in Jensen’s hair. He suckled at the tip of Jared’s dick, and rubbed it over his lips before taking him back in as far as he could, nudging at the back of his throat.  
  
Jared was panting, flushed, the muscles in his stomach pulled tight. “Your fucking mouth,” he gasped.  
  
Jensen pulled off and gave Jared an evil smile, “You can move, you know. I don’t mind.”  
  
Jared bucked up into Jensen’s mouth immediately. Jensen opened wider, relaxed his aching jaw and let Jared slide in deep. A few thrusts later, and Jared was coming with a shout, come painting the back of Jensen’s throat and splashing bitter on his tongue.  
  
Jared slid further down in the chair, legs wide open and his head falling to his shoulder. Like this, he was the absolute picture of debauchery, the gleam of sweat accentuating his muscles while he tried to steady his breath. He rubbed his eyes. “I was loud, huh?”  
  
Stifling a laugh, Jensen gathered Jared’s jeans and handed them over. “A little,” he said with a half shrug. He staggered to his feet, his legs tingling and somewhat numb.  
  
“You wanna?” Jared asked, still fuzzy. He tipped forward and rested his head on Jensen’s bare stomach, fingers fumbling with the waistband of Jensen’s pants.  
  
Tangling their fingers together for a brief second, Jensen shook his head. “I’m not done with you for the night. But not right now. Get dressed,” he ordered. “I’m hungry.”  
  
Jared followed him down the stairs.  
  
“What I wouldn’t give to be a fly on that wall,” Misha said, still seated, as Jared and Jensen padded across the living room. He spoke in hushed tones, appropriate for the early hour. Turning a serious look at Jared he said, “Thank you.”  
  
“For what?” Jared asked.  
  
“For helping me remain a man of my word.” Misha nodded at the stack of manuscripts sitting on the floor. “The one in the middle. _Reservation_. It needs some edits, but I’m publishing it. Sign the contract and leave me your address. You’ll have a check within a couple of weeks.” He pushed himself off of the chair and started toward the guest room, only to turn in the doorway and point at Jensen. “You might even be able to afford to take my boy here out to dinner after I take my cut.”  
  
“You’re saying it’s good?” Jared called out after him.  
  
Misha answered through the closed door. “I’m saying it’s not bad.”  
  
Jared turned toward Jensen, a tentative smile on his face.  
  
“You’ll get used to him,” Jensen said, dragging Jared into the kitchen.  
  
From his seat at the table, Jensen watched Jared move confidently around his kitchen.  "Pancakes at two in the morning," Jensen mused.  "You don't think that's weird, do  you?"  
  
Jared cracked a couple of eggs into a bowl.  "It's not weird if you're hungry.  We're not nine-to-five people."  
  
"Makes us impossible to live with, though.  It's not normal."  
  
"We just have to find the right people to live with," Jared said absently.  "Besides, there's no such thing as normal.  Normal is relative."  
  


 

  
  
  
Jared was uncharacteristically quiet on the ride to the airport. He putzed around with the radio, stared out the window for a while and kept compulsively checking through the pockets of his backpack. He paged through his book deal, reading clauses aloud and asking Jensen a handful of questions. “Do you think I should have gotten a lawyer first?”  
  
“Nah,” Jensen said. “Misha cut the deal. I’d say you’re fairly safe.”  
  
“Misha’s the only man in the business you trust, right?” Jared said, smiling. “He wouldn’t screw me over.”  
  
Jensen cast a sidelong glance at him. “No, he’d screw you over alright, but he’d never do it behind your back. He’d tell you he was screwing you over, and then give you a thirty-second head start.”  
  
They pulled up to the departure ramp, and Jensen jumped out of the car, nearly fleeing in the direction of the trunk. He lifted Jared’s suitcase out of the back and closed the trunk, concentrating on the shiny red surface and the feeling of cold metal under his hands. The air was heavy with exhaust, and the concrete beneath his feet vibrated with the movement of cars across it. He concentrated on those things too.  
  
Jared came up behind him and kissed the back of his neck. “Jensen, I—“  
  
Jensen quickly faced him. “No,” he commanded, more harshly than he’d intended. “We’re not gonna do this.”  
  
He felt like he was about to do something impossible, huge and as terrifying as a tightrope walk across the Grand Canyon. His eyes stung and the air in his lungs burned, and he wished that Jared would stop looking at him that way, hopeful and sad all at the same time. Jensen forced himself to talk past the block in his throat. He took a deep breath; let it out slow and shaky. “Fun week.”  
  
“Yeah, it was.” Jared’s voice was reed thin, stretched too tight.  
  
“I think the snow’s gonna hold off.” Jensen glanced up at the grey sky.  
  
“How can you start talking about the weather right now?”  
  
"Listen,” Jensen said, licking his lips. “You said so yourself. We don't write those kinds of stories. We never have, and I don't think we should start now."  
  
In the end he couldn't help himself. He slipped a hand on Jared’s neck, smoothing his thumb along his jaw. He kissed him, chaste and fast, three small kisses like punctuation marks. Jared tilted their foreheads together, his wool gloves scratching Jensen's neck. "I don't want to go," he said. He sounded so young.  
  
Turned out that it was a quiet thing—the sound of a heart breaking. "Nothing says you have to." Jensen hated himself more and more with each outspoken word.  
  
"Actually there's a lot that says so. And it all seems a lot less important than it did a couple of days ago."  
  
"Then go. Just. Dedicate your next book to me, or something. Sound good?"  
  
"Sounds good." Jared grabbed his suitcase, resolutely turned his back on Jensen and walked across the sidewalk, his feet dragging and the frayed cuffs of his jeans scuffing on the concrete.  
  
Jensen rounded his car, spotting the corner of a wooden frame mostly shoved under his passenger seat. "Fuck," he muttered, tearing open the door and yanking it out. He yelled Jared's name, and Jared turned around fast, relief painting his face. He dropped his bags and started jogging toward Jensen.  
  
They met each other half way.  
  
"Here," he said, shoving his framed rejection letter in Jared's direction. "It might be worth something one day. You can pawn it if the writing gig doesn't pan out."  
  
Jared's fingers slipped in between Jensen's when he gripped the frame, and then Jared was kissing him, hard and deep, desperate and perfect and Jensen didn’t want to stop. He never wanted to stop. Jared pressed the frame to Jensen's chest as they parted, and when he spoke he was breathless. "You keep it. Give it to me the next time I see you."  
  
"Fucker," Jensen said.  
  
Jared flashed him a grin. "I know. I'm crazy about you too."  
  
Jared grabbed him in a rib-crunching hug, his mouth moving on Jensen’s skin when he whispered. “Thank you, Jensen. For everything. For things you don’t even know. Thank you.”  
  
  
  


 

  
  
 

  
  
  
  
  
  
Epilogue:  
  
This was what a perfect day for writing looked like. It was somewhat cloudy and cool, the morning sun peeking through to reflect off of the small creek that ran lazy and twisting behind Jensen’s new place. One of those perfect spring days, muggy, a light wind pushing the clouds across the sky and carrying the promise of a warmer afternoon. Jensen wondered if the water would be warm enough for a swim later in the day.  
  
Wisteria hung on a trellis along one wall of the screened porch, making the light take on a kind of surreal green tinge. Jared had been right: the stuff did smell exactly like honey and burnt cork.  
  
Jared had been right about a lot of things.  
  
The porch’s wide planked floor felt rough beneath Jensen’s bare feet. It gave a rusty groan when he settled down into his chair, dragging it up to a small desk he’d slapped together out of cinderblocks and scrap lumber. A cardboard box full of blank paper sat next to his chair, his blown glass paperweight keeping them in place. Jensen lifted it, holding it up to catch the sun. It had a small chip in it, a short crack on a path to the center, and the light caught and refracted in the imperfection. Probably a result of the move. He’d been in a rush when he’d packed, had thrown out most of what he owned and given a lot of the rest away.  
  
The shrill ring of Tennessee’s old telephone sounded through the open window. It rang three and a half times. Jensen ignored it, downed the rest of his cup of coffee, now lukewarm. The wind changed direction, and Jensen could hear the distant sound of his closest neighbor’s music, a half a mile away down a narrow paved road. One good thing about living in the middle of nowhere was that there weren’t a lot of distractions.  
  
An open box sat at his ankle, a couple dozen first editions of his new book were stacked neatly inside, their glossy covers starting to curl in the humid air. There were three more cases like this one, all waiting to be signed and sent out to bookstores all over the country. He pulled one out and opened it, the spine creaking and the comforting bookstore smell of paper and glue hanging in the air. Jensen thumbed through the pages. They contained seven short stories and one novella. Early reviews had come back favorable, but that didn't matter a lot to Jensen. What mattered was that these three hundred some odd pages had bought him the time to work on something that he needed to write. He paused at the dedication, the thick paper catching on his thumbnail. He skimmed the words.  
  
 _for jared, because there is honor amongst thieves_  
  
The trilling noise of the spring on the screen door sounded, followed by the slap of wood on the doorframe. Jensen loved that sound. It reminded him of summertime growing up in Texas, lazy heat and his grandmother’s back porch. Sneaking sips of sweet mint juleps while his grandmother and her sister pretended not to notice.  
  
Jensen shivered some when Jared looped his arms around him from behind. His skin was warm from the shower, a little damp still. It took a long time to dry off when the air was so humid like this. Jensen leaned into the feeling of Jared’s chest along the bare skin of his back. He reached up, touched Jared’s hand, traced along the bumps of his knuckles, the bones of his fingers. He tilted his head to make more room when Jared kissed the crook of his neck.  
  
“HarperCollins on the phone. That PR guy again,” Jared spoke into his skin. “He wants you to fly to Tulane for that book reading Misha won’t shut up about.”  
  
Jensen hummed his reply. They both knew he had no intention of going anywhere. Not for the time being, anyway. He was working, had been writing consistently for the last few months, and was superstitious about it. Now wasn’t the time to break the pattern.  
  
He flicked the switch on his typewriter, the metal case offering a comforting sort of vibration under his palm. He fed a blank sheet of paper into the roller, centered it and typed a number one.  
  
“Are you ready?” Jared asked.  
  
“I think so,” Jensen replied. He paused, chewing thoughtfully on his lower lip. “You know, someone once told me that there were only two kinds of stories in the world. One of them starts out, ‘a stranger comes to town’.”  
  
Jensen felt Jared’s smile on his skin. “So how does the other one go?”  
  
“A man goes on a journey,” Jensen told him.  
  
Jared kissed the back of his neck, giving his shoulders a final squeeze. “Okay. Then go.” He crossed the porch, had his hand on the door handle and turned back again. “And Jensen?”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Make sure you take the long way home.”  
  
  
  


 

  
  
Thanks for reading.


End file.
